DoodleBlog

* The Bulls, a major market franchise with the 9th worst record and a real threat of losing fan interest for half a decade, jump up from number 9 to number 1 in the draft thanks to the lottery. Tim Donaghy’s fingering other refs for gambling and possibly fixing games. The only thing that makes it seem like the NBA isn’t rigged is San Antonio winning all those titles.

* The movie series (three or more installments) with the highest quality is Rocky. One, two, three, and six were all exceptional movies, well written, well acted, and with scads of humor. Not deep movies by any means, but with rich characterization and dialogue. Also something about trying to get the phrase “bought Paulie a robot” going - the point in a sequel when you know it’s going to suck eggs.

It’s of course not surprising that the new Indiana Jones movie is getting bad reviews. What is surprising is that people are pointing to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a quality movie. It’s like someone pointing out, yes, Superman Returns sucks, and additionally it doesn’t live up to the mythic quality of Superman III. The Indiana Jones series followed the same vector as First Blood - one high quality movie followed by some 80s theme park style disasters.

What else? You can extract about 20 gallons of gasoline from a high quality barrel of oil. Just weird to think about with gas at $4 at the pump and barrels of oil trading at $120+. And yes, I know that a number of other fuels are distilled from that barrel of oil.

So, back again after a quick road trip, as much about being on the road as seeing old friends after what seemed like an unending winter. There were a lot of flooded farm fields through Wisconsin, and oddly enough not a lot of birds to be seen, neither wading nor flying. Seemed passing strange. There was the expected amount of roadkill, maybe a little more than usual but it being spring animals are likely on the move. I think in that six hours up I got more sunlight than I had in the past six months. Listened to some music for the first couple of hours and then hopped about the public radio corridor of the Great Cheese State. It was all in all good to get away from ingrained habits for a bit and reflect on the course of things.

Upon returning I was in traffic behind a street legal monster truck with the word “Redneck” emblazoned proudly across its rear windshield. Real? Fake? An urban rhinestone redneck?

Nice NPR Bits

… I listened to Hillary’s “victory” speech as I crossed into Illinois - I’m not sure where she’s going with any of this. 1. The race isn’t tied, drawing just about even in Indiana isn’t a win. 2. A general gasoline tax for car drivers isn’t what’s needed (although a diesel tax holiday for truckers would ease hardship). 3. The 50% of Clinton voters who said they won’t vote for Obama in the general election are actually Republicans who will be voting for McCain no matter who wins the Democrat nomination.

… Al Gore was on Fresh Air, and after eight years it seems like he’s actually able to tell a joke. His ideas about eliminating income tax were a bit confusing though. “See, we get rid of the income tax and instead tax CO2 emissions, that convinces folks to produce zero emissions!” A plan which, if successful, means the goverment takes in less and less revenue?

… It’s amazing what a religion the free markets have become. It’s a constant drumbeat of x goes above a certain price, industry will have the economic incentive to develop w, y and z and everything’s squared away. Everyone’s happy! Oil’s too expensive? Now other forms of fuel will be competitive! Erm, fine. But what if the other forms of fuel are, while cheaper than oil, still more expensive than what oil used to cost? And then you factor in retooling everything, people buying different machines to use the fuel, updating infrastructure to move that fuel around - is a reduced standard of living a possible net result (while some corporations reap huge profits as new technologies are mandated and others are driven out of business)? Can we ever accept that there will be hardship involved in change, that what we mistake for freedom - economic discretion - may be diminished? Why is the goal the status quo with 5% annual growth? In any case, I’m always full of more questions than answers.