1. Tomorrow I leave for the desert of 48, so this week’s flotsam comes a day early.

2. Yesterday was moving (out) day, when men came to cart all my worldly goods off into a truck. It also just so happened to be the day that Michigan was hit by the tail-end of a hurricane. The result was that the worker’s had to stop every now and again to wait for the worst of the downpour to ease up, and that everyone got well and thoroughly soaked, but everything got safely loaded and I vacated the apartment I’ve called home for the past three years.

3. I’m looking back on that period as a kind of transitional stage; where I finally managed to escape the under-employed rut I’d been in for years, and then, by a strange set of circumstances, found myself in a completely different career path…namely, the one I had vaguely expected to pursue way back in college. It’s as if I’ve followed Mr. Chesterton’s path of going around the whole world until I ended up right back where I’d originally thought I was heading.

4. Another excellent quote from Pilgrim’s Pass, one of my favorite YouTubers: “Most people have a political vocabulary of about five words.” Which…yes, that’s very much the case. “Socialism,” “Democracy,” “Freedom,” “Oppression,” “Fascism.” That’s really about it, with a few assumed-synonyms like “Marxism” or “Nazism”. Talk to one side of the aisle, everything is either Fascist or Democratic. Talk to the other, it’s either Marxist or Free.

My own guess is that this is a consequence of the kind political rhetoric that a representative government incentivizes, where each side shores up their support by linking themselves with things we’re supposed to like (e.g. the American Revolution) and their opponents with things we’re supposed to dislike (e.g. the French Revolution). This leads to a massive watering down and absurd reduction of different political systems, ideas, and events into a small handful of labels, giving us a highly blurred and limited political vision.

5. I can never understand why so many people default to their phones for the internet and the like; I loathe using the damned thing whenever I’m forced to do so, since the screen is so small, the touchscreen is so unresponsive (did I hit the button and it’s just taking its time or did it not register?) while covering half the screen, there are so fewer options for navigation, and the whole thing is just overall a substandard and extremely frustrating experience.

6. Most recent movie night was WarGames from 1983 with a very young Ferris Bueller Matthew Broderick as a proto-techie who accidentally hacks into NORAD’s new Master Control Program and starts playing ‘Global Thermonuclear War’ with it, nearly sparking World War III for real. It’s a fun, smart little thriller. I liked how Bueller was able to use his smarts more than once to improvise his way out of situations (I mean, that you’d be able to escape NORAD is a stretch, but they reach hard to make it work). I also was delighted to see the great Barry Corbin as the general in charge, especially as he averts the standard ‘war-crazy general’ stereotype and instead proves to be level-headed and professional in a crisis, doing things like demanding a visual confirmation of supposed inbound Soviet planes (I mostly know him as General Carvill from Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2, which is basically a take-off on this role).

A pre-Breakfast Club Ally Sheedy is also on hand as Bueller’s love-interest (and I can practically see her agent pushing for more scenes of her in flattering work-out gear). One thing I like about the film is that both she and Bueller have pretty solid personalities; not deep characterization, but recognizably individual, enough to feel like real people and not cardboard cutouts. Overall, one of those really solid, enjoyable high-concept 80s films.

7. On the subject of Ferris Bueller, my assessment of The Lion King is that it’s an overall good film, but that the first half is much better than the second. Partly this is because I think Bueller was miscast as adult!Simba. He’s a charismatic and talented performer, but his light, high-pitched voice is not at all befitting a young king reclaiming his throne. Not to mention you have to wonder just what happened in the gene pool for James Earl Jones to sire Matthew Broderick.