Rated PG-13 for What?

Recently we purchased on Digital Versatile Disc James Cameron's Avatar: The Original Airbender. This film is rated PG-13 by the MPAA, which means one must have a parent willing to spend $13 for you to view it in the theater.

According to the obverse of the disc jacket, here are the reasons why Avatar is rated PG-13:

--Intense epic battle sequences and warfare: seems reasonable

--Sensuality: okay

--Language: No problem, although I didn't find anything particularly offensive about the Na'vi tongue

--Some Smoking: ?? Since when is a movie rated based on the volume of cigarette puffs taken? Didn't Dumbo get plastered in the G rated Disney movie of the same name? Didn't the PG rated Top Gun show a lot more skin than you were comfortable with? Didn't the title character in the family friendly Cinderella show some ankle?

I wonder what rating a movie would get if it were full of gratuitous smoking?

Whose the Idiot?

Bumper sticker seen today:

"Your kid may be an honor student, but your still an idiot."

At least they got the first "your" correct, but the second should be "you're."

So, who's the idiot?

(And, yes, the word "whose" in the title is misspelled on purpose, to drive home the point.)

Pay to the Order of: PJ Cornucopia for $0.27

I paid off a loan last month. It's a great feeling, especially paying it off 12 years early. But the actual process was annoying.

I had to submit a pay-off request on-line to be received in the post. I open the letter and it states the pay-off quote but also, "This quote is good for five business days. After that time, one day's worth of interest will be added to the final pay-off amount."

Seems reasonable, except for the fact that three business days had already passed by the time I got the quote in the mail. So, two days left to send the final amount. Here's the really annoying part: I couldn't simply pay the amount on-line or over the phone. I had to send the payment by wire or certified check. Either way costs a relatively large fee for such a small transaction.

I thought, "Certified check is a smaller fee, but it will take a few days to get to the lender, thus my quote date will have passed and they might tack on a couple more days worth of interest and I'll have to spend another $12 for a certified check for an amount less than a dollar..."

Just to get it over with, I did the wire -- at a whopping $25 fee. I asked the lady at my bank, "When will this go through?" "Tomorrow," she says. Since my quote was only good to that day, I decided to send the amount with one extra day's worth of interest: 27 cents.

The deed was done and I didn't think anything more of it until a few days ago I got a refund check in the mail from the lender for 27 cents. Wow! The postage was for more than that. The cost to have someone make up that check certainly was more. Why bother?

I almost wanted to destroy the check uncashed just to mess up their accounting to lash back at making me spend $25 on a wire transfer fee when I could have so much more easily just paid off the loan on-line. However, I did deposit the check. It is 27 cents after all. That will get me 75 minutes of parking at the library.

Lent Me Your Ears and I'll Sing You a Song

This year I have decided to observe Lent. In my religious upbringing Lent was neither observed nor even mentioned. Therefore, I really don't know much about it all. However, the idea of giving up a worldly pleasure as a means of purification, penance, attaining enlightenment, or some such is intriguing to me.

I do have a practice of fasting once a month. Sometimes there is a spiritual motivation behind it, often it is out of habit, but I usually remind myself that there is a pragmatic holistic purpose to fasting, i.e. give your body a break from digesting all that food you eat, you pig!

Honestly, I don't think the actual dates of Lent will have much if any significance to me. Still, I will follow the Western liturgical calendar, as it will be easier to keep track of my progress.

My "fast" will be abstaining from watching television. I don't consider TV a vice, but those nights when I watch syndicated re-runs of "The Office" from 6:30 to 8:00 on two different stations makes me wonder how I could have made better use of my time.

Thus, from Ash Wednesday, February 17 up to and including Easter Sunday, April 4 I will not watch any network or cable TV shows for myself. I have laid some rules and exceptions for myself. I will allow myself to watch the occasional movie, but probably only with the wife as a way to enjoy a weekend night. Also, I will allow myself to watch a show with my 4-year old as a means of daddy-daughter time. I will not impose my fast upon my family. I won't leave the living room just because the TV is on, but will try to be engaged in some other activity.

But good activities need to fill the void. I don't want to be giving up TV just to instead fritter away the hours posting on my blog. I don't have any concrete goals laid out just yet, but I do want to use this time to do more constructive things -- such as read one or two of the 80 books I have on my reading list, do family history work, write, play with the kids, talk to my wife, etc.

I realize that I am going to miss the Winter Olympics. I will also miss Opening Day of the 2010 Major League Baseball Season as the Yankees play the Red Sox on Easter night. But, I can always catch the highlights on the Internet.

Hiding from Google Earth

A few months ago we got new windows in our house. Good ones: tax-credit eligible, Energy Star, Low-"E" glass, High "Omicron" Glass with see-through capabilities, 75 megahertz computing speed. When the old windows were torn out we also took out, from the bathroom window, shutters that opened horizontally. However, we haven't put the shutters back in to re-cover the new window. Part of the reason we haven't put them back is because they are 100 years old and ugly. The other reason is because I'm lazy.

So, usually, the bathroom window remains uncovered. Yet, when I wish to shower myself with water I most often like to do that unclothed which may go without saying that I feel more comfortable having some kind of blind over the window to conceal my raw state. I will drape a towel over the window. The misses wonders the need to do such. The bathroom is on the second story, so anyone lurking in our backyard would not be able to see my full profile from the ground. The bottom of the window is already higher than waist-height anyway so any neighbors voyeuring from their own second-story perch still probably would be disappointed.

But, still, I don't like getting undressed at night not being able to see past the glare of the glass, not knowing what weirdos are out snooping, and not being certain that any innocent bystander won't see more than he or she bargained for.

My wife is now convinced that I am hiding from Google Earth. Clearly, a satellite is stationed well higher than a two-story house, so looking down into the window will provide the Full Monty. There may have been one or two times where I did not do the towel-veil thing, therefore there is a very small possibility that one of those moments was when the Google satellite was doing its rounds. In conclusion, if you really want to, I'll give you my address. Then log onto Google Earth, and who knows? You just might get lucky.

Soup In A Bowl

The college football bowl season is upon us, and that means it's time to either laugh at or scratch our heads over why there are so many bowl games, and so many bowl games with ridiculous names. This year there are 34 bowl games played over three weeks from mid-December to early January. You may be somewhat familiar with, or at least have heard of, the more high profile, decades-long running games such as the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, or the Cotton Bowl.

In recent years there has been a proliferation of new bowl games, and each has to have a sponsor, and, of course, the sponsor wants the game named after them. Consequently, there are some absurdly named games, such as (and to quote Dave Barry, I swear I am not making this up!):

Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl

Meineke Car Care Bowl

Papajohns.com Bowl

That's right - not just Papa John's Bowl, but Papajohns.com Bowl. As if to say, "Hey, we're so prestigious and tony that we have a website!" Well guess what, Papa? I've got my own website! In fact, you're reading it right now. In false, I'm going to create my own bowl game: The Fantastic Foodmagorium Bowl. It will be played in Bangor, Maine each January 2. Kickoff at 8pm.

Really, the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl? When was the last time you ate pizza out of a bowl? If they're going to name a bowl game after a food product, at least let it be something you usually eat from a bowl. I can't wait until Battle Creek, Michigan hosts the Kellogg's Cold Cereal Eaten Out Of A Bowl. It will pit the seventh-place team from the Western Athletic Conference against the #11 team from the Big Ten. Exciting! (Really, there are eleven schools in the Big Ten Conference.)

Even the traditional games have added the corporate sponsor name to the official title. The Rose Bowl is officially The Rose Bowl presented by Citi. We have the FedEx Orange Bowl and the Nokia Sugar Bowl. The long-running Peach Bowl, played in Atlanta, became the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, but that company didn't want peaches crowding out their logo, so now the game is officially sanctioned the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

What do the football players themselves think about all this? Long ago it meant something to play in a big-name bowl game. It was like, "Hey, we played great this year and we get rewarded with an invite to the Peach Bowl." Now the reaction is more like, "Chick-fil-A Bowl? What's that? Is that any different from the EagleBank Bowl?" What if the right tackle is a vegetarian? Is he really going to want to play in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, or the Outback (Steakhouse) Bowl, or the Papajohns.com Meat Lovers Supreme Bowl?

Post Gametime Depression

I enjoy watching sports on TV, but I really can't stand the pre-game, post-game, and color commentary. It's always the same inane editorials about what the team has to do to win, why they didn't win, and obvious breakdown analysis of a play.

For example, here is a typical pre-game show parlance from a recent NFL broadcast:

Dick: Well, Boomer, what are the keys to the game for the Eagles?

Boomer: Well, Dick, I think that if the Eagles score more points than the Giants, then they have a pretty good shot at winning this game. They have to run the offense, play some defense, essentially play a football game by the rules, but play better than the Giants.

Dick: Well said, Boomer.

During the game, the color commentator never has anything insightful to say. He or she is usually complicating the obvious. Here's a clip from a past NBA game:

Jerry (the sportscaster, energetically): Iverson takes the feed from Wallace. He splits two defenders, does a 360 spin jump and hammers it home over Ewing!!

Hank (the color, deadpan): That's right, Jerry, what a great play. I think the fact that Iverson jumped higher than Ewing was the key driver in allowing him to score.

Alas! the game ends and we have to listen to the critique of the entire game. Coaches, too, are notorious for not being able to come up with anything substantial to say about the game. Coaches shouldn't carry all the blame for making vacuous comments, though. Reporters simply ask dumb questions. Another gem:

Reporter: Coach, why did your team lose tonight?

Coach Harris: Well, the other team scored more points than we did. I believe that was what gave them the opportunity to win.

Reporter: How will you prepare your team for the next game?

Coach Harris: Ninety percent of the game is mental. We just always have to keep in mind that if we score more points then our opponent, then we will have the best chance to win.

I can avoid watching the pre- and post-game shows, but I can't avoid listening to the color commentary without simply turning the TV off. My wife would love that.