Super Ate

What is in the current obsession with...

The media is saturated with the adjective.  Our nation is a 'Super-:Power'.  With the demise of the Soviet Union, we consider ourselves the only Super-Power, but we acknowledge there are a few demi-Super-Powers out there.  We have Super-Models, superior for fine genes and the ability to face burning penetrating light and photo-shop wizards.  Our meals can be Super-Sized, which just means our culture can eat ourselves into oblivion and type-two diabetes faster.

The real knock for me is when I want to go to a movie with my wife.  My choices are pretty limited. The chief rival for real adult themed movies is....Super Hero movies.

We Americans can't seem to get enough of this stuff.   It is CGI drivel on steroids. Marvel and DC Comics have taken over our theaters.  While in Washington D.C. the Conservative Religious Right is trying to legislate our bedroom lives, Marvel is selling us  outrageous muscles and men in tights and capes. Talking about a mixed message. Do we American's really feel the need for magically enhancing our 'powers' like we now feel we must surgically enhance our bodies?

Now, let me confess....I had an obsession with Marvel comics too in my day. Like, when I was 13.  And I nursed fascinations with Harry Potter and LOTR  franchises also.  I 'get' it to some degree, and there is definitely and audience for that type of thing.

But Hollywood....please don't forget that there are some of out there that want a good adult romance, or mystery, or thriller too.  Some of us adults in the target population really do like fine acting, great dialogue, and thoughtful plot (and plot twists!!) too.  And please, I like to take my spouse to a movie once in a while...throw us a bone.

Cheers, nca

P.S. Some of my favorites? How about 'The Artist'?  "Saving Private Ryan" had the best all action scene at the end probably EVER!  And that does not even count the opening scene which is the best D-Day depiction ever filmed.  "The King's Speech" had terrific acting all around.  For a really good thriller, how about 2010 "Frozen".  For Quentin at his finest, what about 'Reservoir Dogs" or 'Jackie Brown"?  For a great foreign language film...how about "Wadhda"?  And if you have to have Fantasy Epics....go back to the original LOTR trilogy...not the CGI ruined "Hobbit" over-production.

What are some of your favorites? And how do you feel about Super-Hero Movies?

LONG LIVE MY CODE

OK, nerd alert...nerd post...

OK, just so you know....I love the Language of COBOL. I love it's elegant simplicity, it's format and it's structure. I love EVALUATE and PERFORM and INSPECT.  I love pretty code all lined up. I love the solid Courier TYPEFACE in my TSO EDIT page. I love substrings and SEARCH and EXEC SQL.   I love paragraphs with single functions and one simple period at the end of the paragraph.  EXIT.

I have been coding programs in COBOL since 1994 and I still do today every chance I get.

I realize this makes me a nerd. I also realize this dates me with all other modern IT nerds who prefer JAVA and PERL and C++ and all the other 'inferior' languages.  I am ok with that.  

There is something so basic and primal about beautifly structured COBOL. When all the code is lined up, where every sentence in the program is well thought out, where every error and exception is handled efficiently. I love to see CODE that is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) validated and pleasing to the eye and every function is balanced...no more code and no less code then is efficient to perform the objective of the program. I admire IF statements with no nasty NOT, everything positively stated and structured.

The beauty of a well designed array is beyond lovely. Well thought out variable names are as beautiful as perfectly rhymed and metered poetry.

I love to see my name in the flowerbox of a well designed COBOL program. It is lasting and eternal. I will be long gone from this mortal coil and  some elegant COBOL module that I created will still be executing on some box somewhere. I just know it will.

PERFORM UNTIL

Cheers, nca.

This about sums it up

It was the donated book sales at the Gilbert library. The book looked interesting, thin with a artistic pencil drawn dust jacket. And the book was about libraries. I love libraries, I always have. I met my wife at a library. I worked there, as did she. Definitely worth a closer look, that thin square book.

There was an inscription on the inside. Sometimes I think inscriptions are cool. Inscribed by the author, it can be really cool. But sometimes just a message to the recipient, maybe a gift.

Oh wait, that makes me feel a little sad. Maybe not 'always', hey Granmom...? 

Cheers, nca