The Pigs are Walking

Itch. That inimitable feeling that starts so slowly. Hello frogs boiling in water. Are hard core Democrats beginning to get a bit... warm in these waters? Are they detecting a certain heat from below? Is their skin starting oh so subtly to itch, to crawl, to vibrate with a vicious hint of betrayal? What far right loon out there held on to George W. Bush no matter what he did? There were some, I assure you. There will also be those who watch that great ship in the ocean, the Ameritanic sink and start into the singing with their captain, ignoring the reality of the situation, until that fateful day they find themselves in a bunker with a glass vial in their hands.

Guys... Gals... let's be blunt shall we? Obama doesn't know what he's doing. And we are in trouble.

(What's that I hear? Rush Limbaugh calling? "Er, yes?" "Jason, Jason, Jason, Obama DOES know what he's doing! He's doing all this ON PURPOSE! Out of a sense of anger and rage against those he perceives have been evil wrong to America!."

You know if this were a fantasy novel Obama would remember his 'good' side at the last moment and turn back from this precipice.

Last night Bill O'Reilly had a lady on who was a democrat strategist. He asked her if all this spending was worrying her, if this was the change she wanted. Her reply? "Well, this isn't the change I wanted, but... it might be the change we need." Bill was agast. He asked her if she was worried all the spending would fail, and it would collapse. She admitted she WAS worried. He followed with, so if this doesn't work, you will admit it and vote Republican in two years. To which, this woman shook her head and laughed and said: NEVER. NEVER. NEVER. It doesn't matter WHAT happens, EVER, she is a Democrat NO MATTER WHAT.

NO MATTER WHAT.

Colosimo Bratwurst

Okay, so everyone had heard of Jonsonville Sausages and Bratwurst.  At least that is the brand that is found in most grocery stores.  I've been eating them for as long as I can remember, and until recently I didn't realize how bad they really are.  In one fell swoop you will never go back and buy Johnsonville again after you have tasted the incredible flavor of the Colosimo Bratwurst.  They are a company from Utah, and are clearly the best tasting bratwurst EVER.  They have other types of meat as well, sausages, Italian Sausage, New York, Tuscan, etc.  All are good, but the one you want is the plain Bratwurst.  Not sure if you can get them out of Utah, but if you can, you owe to yourself to give these a try.  I been eating them for about a year, because Jennie bought them one day.  Well, the other day, I ended up wanting Bratwurst, and went to Smith's and they only had Johnsonville. I was like, okay, no big deal.  We ate them that night, and it was like, eh....  So a few days later Smith's got some more Colosimo in, we bought it and brought it right home.  After one bite, I vowed never to eat an Johnsonville Brat ever again!  Give it a try!

Colosimo Web Site

Xenocide Review

Years ago my friend Ben Larsen sent me Ender's Game to read. Either that or he told me to read it. Whatever, I read it and thought... hm... interesting. I wasn't that impressed with it. Years later, I read it again, and thought it was much better the second time. In fact I was downright taken by it!  Then I read Speaker for the Dead, which is the follow up to Ender's Game, and I listed that as one of my favorite top 50 novels of all time. Great book!

And so I immediately read the next book in the series, right? Right? Nope. I have read a lot of Orson Scott Card books over the years, but I never read Xenocide. Why? Well it starts with this new character, and half way through the first chapter I always put it down. You don't know how many times I've started that book.

But this last month, I finally managed to get past that first chapter. It's ironic, because I am always saying I think the first chapter of Speaker for the Dead is one of the best there is. And this one? Well it's not bad, it's just so different that I couldn't get into it.

Okay, enough about why and when I read the book. Is it any good? It is. It is a GREAT book. It asks so many questions, and puts it's characters in such moral dilemmas that it has this unique edge to it. I guess you don't see most authors these days confront ethics like this. For that matter, most authors these days have loose morals and just assume a certain degree of villainy is common to the everday man and woman and isn't worth confronting.

Plus, Card does something in a lot of his stories I admire and always enjoy: He talks about GOOD people. I think common wisdom would say that GOOD people are boring, but that is the crux of Xenocide. A lot of good people together end up butting heads, and doing a lot of bad. Not because they are bad, but because they get misguided and because they are doing things they are so convinced ARE good. And indeed, each individual person's point of view CAN be seen as good! But when you throw it all in the mix, and you add in the dynamics of a very dysfunctional family, and you add in the ethical dilemma of three different races (or even four, actually) trying to coexist, and you get a really great story.

But... the story is loose. It's not as tight as Speaker for the Dead. I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that, except that it's expansive and big and lacks grounding. Card is never one for detailed descriptions of people, places or things, and this novel suffers because of it. Granted, I never skimmed a paragraph because he was describing the leaves and stems of the trees. But I think one of the reasons it doesn't feel as tight is because so little is devoted to description.

Plus, the story is just big. And the characters don't have the time to develop and grow and 'simmer' that they should. Too much happens. It's a big book as it is, but it should have been a bit bigger. The exploration of ethical dilemmas was incredible and exciting. But the characters and the setting came up a bit short.

Years ago, I was talking to Card about Ender's Game, and I told him one of the great things about the story was that more than all the science fiction, the buggers, and the battle school, I came to really care about Ender, and I wanted this little boy to have happiness. He responded by saying "Then I have succeeded. That is what really matters."

And as good as Xenocide is... it does not focus enough on any one character for me to have that bond with them, that rooting interest, that place in my heart where great characters reside and live with me.

In Xenocide, the story overwhelms the characters. Oh, but what a fine story it is!

Sarah Conner Chronicles

TV has just gotten better in the last decade. Without a doubt, some of that has to do with our big screen TVs, HDTV, DVRs, and great sound systems. DVDs anyone? Is there a better way to watch a long serialized TV show? And now BLU RAY!

Today I bought my first ever BLU RAY disk, and I choose Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Instead of an actual movie, I choose a TV show. Of course. Being a fan of Lost and Battlestar Galactica, I love my serialized TV. Big stories, with twists and turns. Who here got LOST Season 1 on DVD and ended up watching the whole season in about 2-3 days? Who stayed up till 2-3 in the morning, watching... 'just one more episode?" Yeah! That is the way to watch TV.

Okay, so the visuals are better, the sound is better, and the story is BIGGER. But is it better? I think that's a great question. And I'm tempted to rattle of the top off my head a quick and surefire YES. It's just BETTER. But I have a tendency (and I bet you do too) to think the current thing we are into is the BEST we have ever seen. There was probably a day when I thought the ORIGINAL Battlestar Galactica was the best on TV. (Come on... I can't even watch an entire episode now, they are THAT bad.)

But... then I was younger, and far less picky. And I wasn't spending a great deal of my time WRITING stories, so I wasn't really thinking about what made a good one or a bad one.

Truth is poor visuals of old shows can really irritate me. But some stories I think stand the test of time. Though it is relatively new, The Sopranos is a character based story that I think will stand the test of time. But were they any really good TV shows from the 80s? The A Team anyone?

Here is another question for all of you: Does anything really stand up to the test of time? Did Lucas really need to go in an re-digitilize Star Wars A New Hope?

This has gone a long way from where we started, which was The Terminator, Sarah Conner Chronicles. Okay, does Terminator 2 stand up to the test of time? I think it does. It was a great STORY. (James Cameron, wizard of the special effects, was once a great STORYTELLER).

And so here we stand at Sarah Conner. Okay, I've watched ONE episode. But what about that ONE episode? First impressions mean a lot. And this is what I thought: Storytelling has gotten better on TV. This was a great and fun story. The visuals were great, but around the 20 minute mark, I was on the edge of my seat. It propelled me forward with some great characters. Sarah, who is trying to protect her son from 'the machines' and is thought to be crazy, and maybe... just maybe she IS! And then there is John himself, this messiah of the future who pretty much doesn't do anything but whine and bitch and run. He needs some work, but you get the sense that he'll become the star of the show. And Terminator wouldn't be terminator if you didn't have a bad robot, and... a good one. And this time around, why not go with an upgrade on the good robot, and make her a sexy teenager? The ensemble works, and has room to grow. You have the cop who is chasing them who will inevitably realize that there really ARE robots out there and that Sarah might be onto something! You have the jilted finance, who... might be more than he seems. But better than all that you have a pretty damn cool story.

It is the root of science fiction that robots, artificial intelligence, etc, turns bad. Hell Battlestar Galactica is entirely based on this concept. Most science fiction writers have a world invaded by aliens story, and along side that they also have the robots went mad and took over the world story. The Matrix wasn't original after all, was it?

And the genre has a lot of room in it. In this version, they throw in time travel. It's loosey goosey in the movies, and I'm hoping they expand it here and get some meat on it. But it's looking interesting. And it has built in tension. Being chased by a killer robot. It's relentless.

I like it.

I've only watched one episode. I'm sure it will twist, and it will turn. I'm sure it will have some dud moments, and I'm hoping it will have some great moments. But even if it's a dud, I think I will answer my original question with this answer: TV is better today. And not just because of the visuals.

I think it's because writers are getting better. So many stories have been told out there, and there is little original left, so if you tell a time travel story, and you tell a robots gone mad story, you better do it BETTER than the guy/gal before you did it! And in a lot of instances, I think that writers are stretching and getting better. Not all of them! And they aren't perfect. But the DVD serialized concept of TV, longer biggger stories, with room to explore multiple characters, has some promise still left in it.

And it doesn't hurt that they have big budgets and we get to watch them on DVD with big screens and great sound! Nah... that doesn't hurt at all.