[Author's note 2016: this is a Dragon transcript. The picture is added later. I eventually dropped learning CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) as more trouble than it was worth. Picture added later. It's the border near Douglas, Arizona.]
I was about to laze around for the day when Howard called. It was a perfect day but the forecast was for rain so I ruled against driving over to JZ’s for something to do. (Sure enough, the downpour began in late afternoon.) We usually go out hunting for women but never find any. Well, we do, but they are either hanging on the arm of a man or pushing a baby carriage. You know how I love the instant family concept.
For instance, permit me my views on the new Superman Returns. It is a chick flick, people. The special effects are too obvious, he is hanging from a crane with the cable airbrushed out, no attempt at subtlety here. This round is, I think, the last time Superman gets away with being a white male with a steady job. The whole plot is a little too fictional, starting with him returning five years later and getting his old job back. It hasn’t been exported to Kryptonistan, yes and golly.
Then the whole movie deteriorates into an unrequited love story, all from Lois’ point of view. Or, more accurately, from a weepy 16 year old girl’s point of view. For instance, “moving on” with her life is synonymous with getting shacked up, pregnant and having a totally clinging little wimp bastard of a son who dutifully takes his medication. Are you getting my point?
He confronts Superman, not about his adventures across the cosmos for five years, but that he “left without saying goodbye”. Gag. Only that he left, never that she could have waited. The only realism is the extreme shallowness of women as portrayed because she is in love with Superman but not the exact same person in real day-to-day life Kent is not good enough for her. She spurns Kent regularly.
Now Superman himself has turned into a wimp. He uses his X-ray vision to stalk her home and watch her ride up the elevator alone, where she is never caught scratching her ass. Get ready for this. Lois’ kid is Superman’s. So she slept with an alien, making that two things about women accurately portrayed. Of course, once she becomes “married”, she is a pillar of the community out to ban the same kind of immorality in other women. Where have we seen this before.
Gene Hackman was the better Lex Luthor, this new guy doesn’t rock. The sub-plot that human emotion always wins over treachery is getting watered down. Then, so is the way that the entire Daily Planet does not notice that two six-foot-four men both left and returned on the same day a half-decade apart. There was an interesting dig at the American legal system when Luthor is released from prison because of a missed court appearance.
Who is Howard? This is the retired professor who took some basic lessons from me last summer and programmed his own web page. From there, he went on to have Nigeria Jo, the coffeehouse guy, jazz up a fancy page. I specifically warned him about a site that he could not maintain himself and if you have been following, Jo lost his business and had to close up. That leaves Howard with a site he can’t update and my rates are super high for those who did not take my advice.
I went over and showed him two hours worth of non-web items that were lacking. A common error is a DVD in the CD burner. The resulting computer error messages are about as useful as, well, a computer error message. He also has the dreaded AOL9.0 which has taken over his system so badly I had to spend thirty minutes deleting the more useless features, like seven icons in his system tray. His book, “In Search of the Perfect Whore” has been published (Amazon, I think). Promotion is more work that the writing but he’s on the trail.
His question was how to put a shortcut on the desktop that he could click to send anyone a copy of the flyer that describes the book. I don’t know, never been asked that question before. The closest I could get was to place it on a word document which is easy to cut and paste when needed. Creating groups was not an option since he does not know in advance who he will be emailing.
I finally rigged up a curtain across the back of my car, just behind the front seats. This is because the air conditioning is for a Taurus sedan and it can’t quite keep up with the station wagon. Even full blast, the Florida sun doesn’t let the car get comfortable, so I’ve placed a tiny barrier. Wow, what a superb difference! Instead of having a full blast toward your head, it is now a nice quiet flow that keeps the compartment climatized. Should I patent? It is just a wispy thin layer of see-through material that breaks up the front to back air flow.
Two more updates. One, I spent a few hours more on CSS and am beginning to get a handle on the system. Yes, it is needlessly complicated and the text books are full of contradictions. Two, the fern garden is blooming like springtime. These are secretly carrots with the new leaves regularly pinched back to cause a bushy plant. I should have got you some photos but I trimmed them back to nothing before I thought of it. People walking by notice the ferns but not that they are carrots. Just don’t get right up close or the aroma gives them away. Very delicate fern-like growth. I’ve got an apricot and a peach not doing so well.
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