Monday night I was at the library browsing DVDs and such.  I found a few- a reserve waiting for me for season 4 of Psych, ah Megamind- I think I will watch that one, many, many skipped for one reason or other (seen before, lack of interest).  Moving on.  Wait, what’s this?  Should this even be on the return cart?  It should have a reserve list  a mile long.  Ah, I get it- “Here and Now,” meaning that they chose not to allow reserves on it, though no doubt there are a couple dozen copies available for reserve too.  A few copies then to give people a sporting chance without having to wait months on the reserve list.  So which recent blockbuster am I talking about?  None other than Harry Potter  7.1.  The thing is, I have been gambling as it were on a short return to the big screen just before 7.2 next month.  If anyone would do it, it would be AMC, the biggest chain around and with a 30-screen complex about 10 miles away.  But I don’t know if this will really happen- I certainly haven’t heard news of it.  But they have done it before, so…

Yet, now I have a copy in my that I could watch now, for free, in a much smaller and lower-resolution venue as a DVD on a 32-inch CRT TV.  What should I do?  Hmm.

My youngest and I spent part of the weekend cataloging the movies in the house. What do we have on DVD, VHS and Blu-Ray? Not too many on blu-ray yet, but I’m sure in the coming months there will be more movies I want to own.

I was thinking of this, because I never can remember if I own a specific movie or not. I have a number of VHS that I did by DVD replacements for. I’m wondering if there will be any that I ‘NEED’ the Blu-Ray replacement for the DVD. I can’t see that yet, but I do like the quality of the Blu-Ray. I guess I enough of an audio-video geek that I can tell the difference, even in cartoons.

Anyway after counting the movies, I have 400+ movies in my collection. This collection started when the kids were small, so in some cases the movies are 25+ years old. I’m surprised those old VHS tapes still play. And with all of those movies, I have seen all of them at least 1 time. Most of them at least twice. Over 3/4 of those movies I’ve seen 3 times. And there are others that I lost count of the number of times I’ve seen them. Now of those movies, the rest of the family also so a lot of them numerous times.

Interesting fact, if the movie was ‘full’ price, I know I’ve seen it more than 3 times. That only makes sense with the cost of a movie and the cost of a rental. If I know I’m only going to watch a movie once or twice, I like to rent them. If they were bargain basement movies ($5.00 dollars or less), I may only watch them once, but usually at least twice, it depends on my mood.

So at an average of 2 hours per movie (give or take), it would take at least 80 days (watching 8 hours of movies per day) to make it through my collection. So back to books… Around the movies in 80 days??? Should I make a wager to see if I can watch all of them? Nah, there would be no time for books!

I was talking today with my 3rd daughter and her husband about movies I have on VHS tapes. They remarked that they didn’t have a VCR, so they could not watch those movies. I casually remarked that they needed a USB VHS player. I never saw one, and wasn’t even sure if they did make them. Well, I found out that there is at least one company who makes them. So from
the company that brought you the usb turntable and the usb cassette player, ION brings you the VHS 2 PC player. Now you can watch your VHS tapes on your PC. You can also take your home VHS videos and put them on DVD. What more could you want? 😉

I didn’t see the 8-track to PC player. Or BetaTape to PC? Or Edison recording tubes to PC? Sheet Music to PC? Player Piano sheets to PC? OK, I’m getting silly, but what about the 8-track to PC. I had a few not too many years ago. I gave them to someone with a working 8-track player.

I noticed that they have a turntable that goes directly to an Ipod.

They have a 35mm slide to PC scanner and a few other items. Interesting stuff I ever win the lottery.

Another week, another post.  As one of you mentioned in a previous post of mine, this blog lets my friends know about my life even if I don’t post often so I guess any danger of this blog closing has vanished as it is a really good point. Anyway, I finally finished the DVD I was working on for my cabin last Saturday- well, mostly.  There is still one I am trying to fix because the DVD player I tried it in kept glitching at the menu, even after I changed the video and readded it.  Yes, each camper got a DVD with a customized menu- an animation of themselves done with Corel’s Painter 4 Essentials.  With it, you can turn a photo into something that looks like a painting.  Oddly enough, though it goes through an animated process “painting” the picture, you can’t save the animation.  Luckily though I still had Camstudio installed from when admin was trying to save a video when JibJab was a bit slow in allowing his paid download last year.  It did the job perfectly.

Since then, I have been busy or just plain tired.  Mondays are back to having no time to post, and I have been getting up early every day this week, today included, so I have just not felt like posting.  Today however I had an incident that couldn’t wait for a post.  Actually, it’s the latest in things that have been going through my mind as a post for awhile about names and relations.  About names, a couple of recent namesakes have run across my life either personally or in the news.  One of them is the CINO (if you are familiar with the political term RINO you will understand this abbreviation considering his recent interview with the local paper) named Milton Bradley.  I wonder, is that his real name?  I know many entertainers have stage names, but I don’t really know if that applies to sports figures.  If the name is real, how did kids treat him growing up?  Milton Bradley of course was once a big gaming company in case anyone reading this has forgotten.  It’s not a big name anymore of course having been absorbed by the gaming behemoth Hasbro, but still when the ball player Milton was growing up I’m sure the company was still known.

On the same topic I met a student teacher the other day when subbing at a middle school.  His namesake was a  famous inventor every child in school learns, so I am sure he must have been teased mercilessly.  His name? Tom Edison.  Undoubtedly he is still asked by kids about it, and will be for some time considering his chosen profession.  I can attest to this considering my own last name is a common word if not a namesake (though kids did once ask if I’m related to a character on TV with the same last name- yes, a character- not an actor 😛 ) and I get asked about it all. the. time.

Before I move on to today, I should start a bit earlier.  Kids aren’t the only ones who ask about relations when they encounter a name.  When I encounter a child with a particularly famous last name I sometimes ask about it.  Of course, most either have no idea who I’m talking about or just say no, they aren’t related.  Well they are, as we are all related to the first man and woman known as Adam and Eve, and later Noah since he and his family were the only survivors of the great flood.  They are related, but many generations removed of course.  However, one time when I was student teaching myself, I came across a girl with the last name of Fogerty and of course had to ask about John Fogerty.  Instead of the expected response she said that yes, he was her uncle.  Pretty old for her uncle I would have to say, but maybe she meant great-uncle.  I clarified since John Fogerty could still be a common name and not in fact refer to the former CCR member, but she maintained that he was her uncle.  Well, I suppose someone has to say yes to this question.

Today’s encounter started with a guided reading group.  We were discussing a book where a shy boy had a talent for playing the piano.  He started out telling no one, even his friends, about this talent but ended up overcoming nervousness and performing in front of the school in a talent show.  We talked about performing and of course I shared that I acted.  The kids’ eyes really lit up at this, and I mean really.  When I said this they assumed I meant I acted on TV.  I have never met this kind of fixed attention before when I brought up acting, but it turns out they had a reason for linking acting with television.  Their teacher is the mother of an actor who plays a major role in Smallville, and even came to visit last year.  I probably shouldn’t say which one, but his last name is not the same as his mother’s, so I might if prodded.  I looked up his bio at a few sites and there’s no mention of his mother’s name so it may not even take much prodding…

EDIT: I guess I should have looked up Milton Bradley on Wikipedia before I asked my question, as it has this to say about the baseball player:

Bradley is named after his father, Milton Bradley, Sr., who filled out the birth certificate form without his wife’s permission. As Milton’s mother says of his father, “He wanted a Junior, and made damn sure he got one.”^[1] Junior, who shares a name with a popular board game pioneer, has always been teased about his name, but has never changed it because the memories it evokes “only drive him harder”.^[1]

You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.

Thus begins Alex Rogan’s adventures. In the beginning of The Last Starfighter, the teenager who dreams of escaping the dismal world of the Starlight Starbright trailer park finds freedom in the Starfighter video game. Little does he realize that the game is much more than your average quarter muncher. After breaking the high score on the box, a mysterious, fast talking man drives up in a futuristic car and whisks Alex off to the stars to play the game for real. So much for thinking escape meant going anywhere but city college.

Has it really been 25 years since I sat in a Dallas, Texas multiplex with my brother to watch this extremely cool movie? I have been searching for a long time for this lost gem from 1984 and until Tuesday have met with disappointment. I received an email announcing the release of a 25th Anniversary edition but nothing on a regular DVD (ok, so it is available on DVD, just was not at the store I was in). Last night, I introduced my niece and nephew to one of my childhood favorites (ok, so I was in double digits when it was released). Noah and Elizabeth really enjoyed it. Noah totally ignored his still playing Nintendo DS. At first, Elizabeth wanted to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I convinced her that this is much better.

The space battle scenes look just like those of an 80’s video game which is part of the movie’s charm. Although the story of the young man longing for something more closely resembles that of Luke Skywalker, The Last Starfighter does not try to become the next great sci-fi franchise (this was a year following the release of Return of the Jedi).. No huge name actors and none that I can think of that became everyday names: Lance Guest? Catherine Mary Stewart? The only name that is immediately recognizable (to me, anyway) is Robert Preston who plays the brilliant Centauri. Of course when I was 11 years old, I had no idea that he originated the role of Professor Harold Hill. I still would rather watch him in this even if the roles are similar in most respects: smooth talking traveling salesmen.  Plus, the musical score for the movie is just great as any good sci-fi movie must have.  A big, brassy fanfare plus heroic moments full of romance that get the adrenaline flowing.

I would say this is very family-friendly except for a few expletives spouted off by Alex’s younger brother Louis. And it looks and sounds even better on Blu-Ray. I had to look to find that another lowlight of Lance Guest’s career was Jaws: The Revenge. Not one I will be looking for anytime soon.

Well, school is almost upon us once again.  Depending on where you live, it can be a week or three, or maybe your kids attend an all-year school that started up again in July after a much shorter break.  In the two districts I’m signed up with, it starts in 1½ and 2½ weeks.  What’s that you say?  Two districts?  That’s right.  I am only in hometown and supersized districts this year due to my continued job of shooting pictures of cars.  I have chosen to work three days a week on the cars for now leaving two days to teach.  Of course it will likely be another month before I am needed as a sub, but that’s the plan.  As you probably figured out already, these two districts are where I have gotten most of my work in the past and so I stuck with them, losing the less productive ones, even though near-urban paid me the most.

So how is the new job going?  Well, I got my first store finally- unfortunately it’s 45-minutes away!  The one who had this store didn’t do a very good job so he was replaced.  Not the best way to start, but I’ll take whatever I can get.  Today, in fact, Kim (one of the owners of the company I work for) and I spent much time fixing the stickers on the cars that were tilted, stuck over unremoved adhesive from previous buyer’s guide (warranty info which by law has to be in the window even if just handwritten) or otherwise placed with a lack of care.  I think we did no less than two dozen.  The rest of my time was spent in doing four cars that were ready for me.  Not a lot, but the idea is to have three dealers (four if they are small like this one) in one day to shoot a reasonable amount.  The most I had in one day training with Rene was 42.  At $7 a car that was nearly $300 for the day for her.  Of course that was three large dealers, and even then that number is rare.  My goal is eventually 20-30 cars per day.  Another trainee may be leaving as his school just gave him a reality check- no, it is not possible to graduate in a reasonable time if you only have classes two days a week.  If he leaves then I am hoping to get one of the stores promised to him, but not the other one.  There is a dealer that is way over toward Chicago (strike one for the bad traffic).  They require the cars to be shot in their warehouse a mile away, meaning the cars have to be driven from their lot to there, adding a tremendous amount of time (strike two).  Also, the warehouse has bad lighting with three of the five lights burnt out the last two times I was there making it difficult to take pictures inside the cars (strike three).  I am scheduled to do new cars every other week, but the one who has been doing the used cars while Pat was training to take it over can keep that part as a punishment for his bad performance at the dealer he lost (yes, same guy)!

In the meantime, all this work has meant that I haven’t gotten the DVD done yet for my kids from camp- I’d better start on it soon, or just do what I did the first year- give them a CD with all the pictures, but that’s no fun and can’t be viewed without a computer.

What does a sub when it’s Thanksgiving week and three of four districts he’s signed up in is off all week? Catch up on TV of course 🙂 . For the fourth district it is near impossible to get a job off the web when few show up (teachers must have been told to not take this week off if possible) and it’s the time of day when the system calls subs as well as shows the jobs on the web. When trying to select such a job it is locked 95% of the time because the system is offering it to someone over the phone at the same time. So, as I tried this morning I finished yesterday’s paper (I’ll go out sometime later today to retrieve today’s paper currently laying at the end of the driveway), viewed a few more themes for this blog, and ate some breakfast. I think I like the theme I am now using, so barring any annoying bugs this should be the one. It has a static width optimized for 1024×768 it looks like, meaning there should be no gap issue with my readers- why did only one mention it by the way? Surely others encountered it unless only the one uses Internet Explorer- regardless of the window size and there is now only one sidebar making more room for pictures. Those with browser window sizes less than 1024 wide should see a scroll bar at the bottom since the theme width is locked, but the sidebar is on the right so that will be the first thing unseen. The window will have to be pretty narrow I think before you start having to scroll to read the actual posts. I really hope this is a good one because my options are quite limited. Three-column doesn’t work because I like to post images, a lot of the themes are static optimized for 800×600 so that would limit the image size again, and many just don’t appeal to me.

Back to subbing, I expected to have Wednesday through Friday off, but I was really hoping to work today and tomorrow at least.  There is still a slight chance for an afternoon job today, and a chance of course for tomorrow for the time being so I might yet make some money this week.  If I don’t though, there is a pile of recorded shows dating back to the beginning of the summer.  Why I didn’t watch the summer shows I don’t know, but they’re there along with several fall shows.  I would really like to replace all the VCRs in this house with DVD writers one of these days, but money is tight and the other member of this house is quite comfortable with video tapes and wouldn’t know what to do with recordable DVDs.  I set up my little DVD/media player for her to watch some shows I had downloaded, but for now she is skipping them and watching her own backlog of videotaped shows instead.

Speaking of a backlog on shows, I am down to reserve #12 of 32 on season four of The Office at my library, on three copies so I should hopefully have it by Christmas to watch.

Gloomy days always get me down (unless there is a great thunderstorm raging outside… I LOVE a good thunderboomer). However, today is a not such good day. Today, on the 7th anniversary that she began her great Troop Care Package campaign, Emily Curtis (Ma 2) passed away. It just amazed me how much she and one other lady from a very small town in our little corner of the country could spear-head such a massive undertaking; not at all surprised but just amazed. Right after the tragedy of 9/11/01, Emily began getting the word to everyone to start saving necessities to be shipped overseas to Iraq, and other places where troops were stationed. Drop off locations were set up at churches, schools, KMart (yes… my former place of employment did not allow a barrel to be placed in their vestibule). She traveled around the state as far south as Cincinnati. In chatting with Emily about the campaign, she said that some people went beyond the toilet paper, toothpaste, tube socks, etc and donated things like game boys, DVDs, phone cards, and other nonessentials. including 250 huge bags of DumDum Pops. The soldiers were so grateful to the program that letters have been sent by hundreds of the troops in gratitude. Emily even went to a hospital in Germany to see first-hand the wounded who arrived there from battle. You can read about her week-long Germany experiences here. 4 TONS of items have been shipped over. Now Operation Support Our Troops has a real angel watching over them. It may not be the most popular area for U.S. involvement, but Emily has always been a strong supporter of our military (her son is a West Point graduate). Just talking about all the wonderful things she has done helps immensely. My heartfelt prayers and love go out to Paul, Amanda, Jonathan, and the entire family.

And mostly due to my laziness I am subbing once again, and that is good news for this blog.  I have been on hiatus from this for too long.  I still intend to have some posts of my life outside of teaching, but for a while I have just been turned off from writing during the best time those post would have fit.  Well, to tell the truth my life outside of teaching really hasn’t been too exciting.  Remember back in June when I went to camp?  Well, I am finally making the DVD I have done for my cabin for the last few years.  I have two slideshows and a video finished, along with a video I borrowed from my DVD two years ago in which I just had to modify the end to fit my more recent cabin.  I have been using Ulead VideoStudio which I got free with this computer.  It really is a nice program, and not ridiculously high-priced like some packages out there.  Last year I used a 30-day demo of a $250 DVD authoring package which was nice, but not worth that price in my opinion.  Maybe $100 like this one, but not $250.  I also used a slightly buggy freeware program to do one of the slideshows, and maybe another one.  I haven’t decided yet what to do about this last one to make it different enough from the first two.  Well, I still have a week to put the DVD together before the next church time.  This weekend is the last one of the month, so 4th and 5th grades don’t meet.

As for subbing, I was actually able to get three half days during this first full week of many districts.  Apparently the special ed meetings started right away.  I could have had a fourth, but they called me after 8:00 to arrive there at 8:30.  Well, I might have been able to do that if I was ready to go when they called, but since it was 25 minutes away and in fact I was woken up by the phone call, that wasn’t going to happen.  Besides, I had to take my car in that morning for a new muffler.  Anyway, the three days I did have were pretty similar.  They were all at different Junior Highs (that district doesn’t call them middle schools) and were 8th grade, or a 7th/8th mix.  Two of them were 7:15 AM jobs (too early!) but fortunately I got to sleep in for the last which was an “afternoon,” starting at 10:45 AM.  I didn’t have to leave notes for two of them either, which is always nice, since the teachers came back.  Surprisingly one of these times was the “afternoon” job.  I guess she came back from her special ed meeting for the weekly school meeting.  Since school started last Thursday in this district and the meetings are on Wednesdays after school, this may have been the first one which would probably make it important to attend.  As for the other morning job, that teacher only teaches there in the morning, so I she wouldn’t have come back.  I would presume she teaches somewhere else in the afternoon.

All in all the three half-days went well.  Hopefully I will have more work next week even if there is one day off for labor day.  I am signed up again in three of the districts I worked in last year.  The last was still on the hired subcaller system and barely called me so I switched them for another district that is computer-based so I have more of a chance for work.  That is, I am still working on being signed up there, but that is for a rant in another post…

Wow.  What a good movie.  The Orphanage is an eerily spooky ghost story, and I don’t really know what else to say about it because I want to make sure not to spoil anything.  They must have felt the same way when they wrote the summary on the back of the dvd’s box because it was very general and even incorrect in some aspects.  The movie is in Spanish, and I’ll admit that scared us away from watching it for awhile.  We got to go out to see a movie together while we were in Florida last January, and we went to buy tickets for The Orphanage, but the worker told us it had subtitles.  So we saw One Missed Call instead, and that wasn’t nearly as good, not even the same kind of movie.  Our movie rental place has a satisfaction guarrantee, so when we told them how unhappy we were with The Fun Park, we got a free rental.  My husband was trying to be quick again – that’s what got us into trouble with The Fun Park in the first place though – so he just grabbed The Orphanage, remembering that we had wanted to see it after reading the glowing reviews from critics.  Pretty soon, it was Sunday already and we hadn’t watched the movie and it was due by 11 pm that evening, so we quickly watched it while the kids were all napping from our big weekend.  It didn’t take long to forget we were reading subtitles rather than watching people talk in the movie; it was that good.  The critics were actually right for once.  Like I said, I really don’t want to give any of the plot because it’d be difficult to explain anything without giving away spoilers.  So I’ll just say, if you like spooky movies, this one is a must-see.  It’s not even really a horror movie; it’s supernaturally suspenseful.  The story draws you in and doesn’t let go…  you may not speak the same language as the characters, but you idenify with them, feel their pain, and genuinely care about what happens to them as the story unfolds.  SEE IT!  It’s a totally different movie experience between the subtitles and just the kind of movie it is – I HIGHLY recommend it!