HFPA's Diversity Controversy

Due to this past weekend's Golden Globes ceremony in Los Angeles, the HFPA was in the news quite a bit recently, especially after it was reported that not a single member of the association is Black.

I'm usually on board with calls to increase diversity in any type of organization or company, but this time I disagree.

Let me explain. According to Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) is a non-profit organization of journalists and photographers who report on the entertainment industry activity and interests in the United States for media (newspaper, magazine and book publication, television and radio broadcasting) predominantly outside the U.S. The HFPA consists of about 90 members from approximately 55 countries with a combined following of more than 250 million. It conducts the annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony in Los Angeles every January, which honors notable examples of film and television and achievements in entertainment businesses.

To retain "Active" status, each member must be currently accredited by the Motion Picture Association of America and must submit clippings of their work every year to renew their active status or be reassigned to a non-voting affiliate status.

Requirements for active membership include primary residence in Southern California, attendance in at least four monthly general membership meetings and a minimum of four published articles or photographs per year outside the US.

From this bit of information it is clear that:

1. the HFPA doesn't represent every country in the world, in fact, just over a quarter of them;
2. its membership is potentially volatile, unlike membership in the Academy Awards. For example, if a publication finds itself in economic distress, it can decide to recall its assigned journalist and perhaps rejoin the organization at a later date.

I would then venture to argue that those 55 countries are mostly within Europe (with its traditionally large majority White populations) or are similarly advanced economically. By this, I mean that very likely no African nation sends representatives to the US to be part of the HFPA.

Is it then realistic or even fair to expect (or demand!) that other countries select their journalists based on their race? And then to expect that some of them (which ones?) ensure that they're Black?

I would imagine a country like Finland, or Germany, to have an overall fairly White population, which would also mean that their journalists are very likely going to be White as well. If a Swedish or Spanish or Greek newspaper wants to send a journalist to the HFPA, and has no Black journalists on staff, what could they do?

My more general point is that the United States is considered a melting pot for the many different nationalities of origin of its people, but the rest of the world is hardly like it in this regard.

Let's posit a hypothetical: 20 central African countries decide to join the HFPA and send a representative. Those 20 new members would almost assuredly be Black, because their countries' populations are likely almost all Black, so those who become journalists would be Black as well. Would anyone complain that the African delegation isn't representative of other ethnicities because all their representatives are Black? Of course not!

In conclusion, the HFPA's membership shouldn't really reflect the world, because participation isn't mandatory and it's not made up of people from every country; that's what the UN is for. If there were only White males, I would share in calling them out for not allowing women, but that's not the case (in fact, two of the three representatives who went onstage to try and quell the criticism last Sunday were women, and one was from India -- and wasn't a blonde, tall, Barbie-look-alike; and the man, from Turkey, wasn't actually pale white either).

I think a lot of work needs to be done to achieve equality or parity, but targeting the HFPA is a misplaced effort and fails to consider their extenuating circumstances.

2020: The Motion Pictures

It seems hard to believe that it's already February 1 and I haven't watched a single movie this year yet. Not only that, but it's almost been a year since the last time I went to the movies, in early March 2020, when theaters went dark after the pandemic we're still living through started sweeping the world.

Eventually, by the end of August, a few chains started reopening, including AMC, the one I always go to now thanks to the A-List subscription model they instituted after the revolutionary MoviePass demonstrated it could be successful . . . before crumbling under poor management.

Still, I've kept clear because frankly it's not worth risking your health (and life) or that of the people around you for a movie (that you can always watch later on TV). And given the anemic box office hauls of the few titles that weren't rescheduled, I wasn't alone in reasoning that way.

Hopefully, with the vaccine rollout, this summer things will start going back to normal. I doubt I'd venture back into a closed environment for hours at a time (I usually go for a double feature) until I've gotten the shot myself.

On top of that, given that I had fallen tragically behind with reviewing the movies I had watched (my list seemingly ran away from me and accumulated over 520 titles!!!), I decided to pause movie-viewing and catch up with the TV shows still on my radar, rather than rent or stream more titles, just so I wouldn't add more to the backlog and to give myself a chance to finally catch up, which I was able to do in the span of about six months.

Anyway, this is the meager list of movies I watched in 2020:

9

1917

8

A Hidden Life

Just Mercy

Little Women

Marriage Story

Onward

The Invisible Man

The Two Popes

7

Jumanji: The Next Level

Murder on the Orient Express

The Gentlemen

The Irishman

The Last Full Measure

The Lodge

The Way Back

Uncut Gems

6

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Spies in Disguise

Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

The Grudge

The Hunt

The Langoliers

Trolls

Underwater

5

Bloodshot

Frozen II

Gretel & Hansel

The Rhythm Section

4.5

Candyman

3

Cats

The Turning

It's not a lot of titles, but I guess it's better than nothing, right?

Unfortunately, I'd only really list three for the title of Best Picture:

• 1917
• Marriage Story
• The Two Popes

and my personal award would go to 1917, a visually stunning masterpiece that tells a story well worth knowing.

Well, that's it I guess. Let's hope 2021 brings better tidings . . .

A New Beginning

Hello Reader,

I started this blog back in the summer of 2005, in the heyday of blogging, so to speak, and have enjoyed having a place where I can express myself ever since.

Here I could write reviews of the movies and TV shows I loved watching, the music or art I enjoyed, the books I read, and I could comment on all the topics that interested me, whether they be politics, the environment, space, or LGBT issues.

One thing I never particularly liked, however, was the name I had chosen for the blog, that is BlogElution -- The Blog Evolution. I tried hard to find some catchy or clever name that sort of related to all that I wanted to write about, but it was no easy task. So eventually that's what I settled on, always wishing I had picked something different.

Finally, after having made sure that I wouldn't lose all my years of writing (over 10!!), I sat down and started brainstorming, until I finally came up with a new name (that was still available as a url of course).

So today marks the birth of a head of my own, with a new banner but the same focus.

Now, back to writing!

Ciao!

Massimo

The Passage of Time

This video provides one of the coolest time lapses I’ve ever seen.  I always wonder, whenever I look at a landscape, how it must have looked a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years ago.  This video provides a likely view:

Simply fascinating.

And the appearance/disappearance of one of the Twin Towers is pretty eerie.

Movies attendance

While Hollywood studios are constantly obsessed with their products’ box office receipts, which keep rising year after year thanks to inflation and the occasional new gimmick (like the current 3D craze), a more indicative gauge of their success is how many people actually purchase what they have to offer.

Yesterday, I read this very interesting tweet:

In 1946 4-billion movie tickets were purchased in America. Today the number is about a third of that.

Interesting…

2011, the year that was

2011 ended up being a fairly unremarkable year for our family, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Ray’s contractor job still keeps him very busy, thankfully, and my job just chugs along.  The kids are doing pretty well in school, and Ray and I do our best to give them the tools to live a happy life once they grow up.  Finally, our two dogs, Diablo and Mina, keep going strong.  Diablo turned 15 this past December and people look at her in disbelief when they find out, given how well she does.  Mina is still on drugs because of her separation anxiety, but we do what we can to make her feel comfortable.

Unfortunately, in 2011 I lost a dear aunt to cancer, but fortunately Ray’s mom, who also got diagnosed, was able to beat it.  I sincerely hope I don’t have to deal with that illness for a while now…

The political front brought us the big defeat of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which will undoubtedly help moving forward to cause of gay civil rights nationally.  Unfortunately, the economy is still in shambles and millions are unemployed, which doesn’t bode well for President Obama’s re-election chances in 2012.  I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that my only hope to finally get settled in this country for good stands on his return to the White House for four more years.  If a Republican were to be elected president, we’d be in a heap of trouble.

The greenhouse effect made itself felt around our neck of the woods this year as well.  First, a rather strong hurricane swept up the east coast, a rarity I’m told, and caused us to lose power for 4 days in August.  Then came a freakishly out-of-season snow storm at the end of October that broke countless trees, whose branches were still heavy with leaves following a very long, hot summer, and we lost power again, for 7 days this time.  There’s nothing like losing power to make you realize how much we depend on electricity in our daily lives and how very differently people lived only a couple hundred years ago.

We were fortunate enough to be able to all go to Italy for a week to visit with my parents and friends.  Ray and I also made a quick trip to Venice (kid-less, thanks to my parents), which I had never seen before.  I fell in love with that city.  I found it so beautiful, romantic, unique, charming, and lively; I envy those who live there and would love to go back for longer.

We took another week vacation at the end of the year.  This time we went on a 5-state road trip in the Midwest, followed by 3 days of relaxation in a hotel that featured an indoor pool for relaxing and a water park for some fun.

The road trip started in Omaha, Nebraska and the destinations were:

1. Lincoln, Nebraska
• The state Capitol is quite beautiful; we didn’t see much else.
2. Topeka, Kansas
• Fairly non-descript for being the state capitol, although the Capitol building was very pretty.
• We also saw where the hateful Westboro Baptist Church people live, and were underwhelmed by the simplicity of their lair, while we also felt sorry for the people who live around them.
3. Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri
• While at first we thought the city was part of Missouri, a fact I found rather odd, given its name, we then discovered the even larger oddity of it being shared or split somehow between two states!!  At any rate, the city is quite beautiful, with lots of graffiti, great views of the Missouri river, and a good vibe overall.
4. Jefferson City, Missouri
• We made a detour here to view the state Capitol of Missouri, and I’m glad we did.  It’s a very nice building and the whole city is quite nice.
5. St. Louis, Missouri
• This was the most beautiful of the cities we saw.  We went to the famous arch, the Gateway to the West, which is spectacular from inside and out.  We saw the city at night and walked around a bit.  It was really nice.
6. Springfield, Illinois
• Another state capitol, another visit to a Capitol building, but this one left us underwhelmed.  I guess we expected more from the state that gave us President Lincoln, but it was still quite thrilling to know that our current president had worked in that building before heading to Washington, DC.
7. Davenport, Illinois'
• Another border town, we mostly stopped here just to eat, but we crisscrossed the Mississippi river a couple times and stopped to touch it and take some pictures.
8. Des Moines, Iowa
• This was a surprise for us all I think, since the city felt young, lively, welcoming and open.  We visited a Christmas light display that was quite incredible, then took a stroll through a park with a colorfully illuminated bridge over the lake, and then headed to the state Capitol, which ended up being the prettiest of the 5 we saw on this trip!
9. Omaha, Nebraska
• Our final destination saw us stay at the local Ramada Inn, which features the aforementioned indoor pool and water park.  The stay was good and we got to both relax and have some fun.  For New Year’s Eve we went to a New Orleans’ style restaurant that featured live music, so that was very nice.
• We also visited the local zoo, which was quite spectacular, even at this time of year.  While several of the animals were indoor, we got to see so many, and they have incredible structures like the Desert Dome, the Kingdoms of the Night, and the Lied Jungle that were truly sensational, not to mention the gorilla enclosure, where we saw many baby monkeys and gorillas.  A truly magnificent zoo.

We also got lucky on our way back when our last flight, right after departure, lost one of the engines to what was likely a bird, who flew into it.  Thankfully, the pilot was able to circle around and land safely, but I really feared for our lives for a while.  I was sitting next to Daniel, who kept asking questions (I guess he saw my worried reaction so I had to try to keep calm not to worry him too much), while Nicole seemed utterly unaware (like many other passengers it seemed).

After the landing, we saw several police and firefighting engines that had been put on alert in case it hadn’t gone so well.  Fortunately, the airport being a large one like Chicago’s, they loaded us right on another plane and flew us safely back to New York City.

2011 was also the year I finally started taking my passion for photography a little more seriously.  I started reading about how to do it right, got myself a tripod (a must for professional looking pictures apparently) and a new macro lens which I plan to put to good use in the months to come.  For my birthday, Ray also made me a website where I can post my pictures, such a lovely thought!!

Furthermore, I also got a new car.  T’pol, my beloved Nissan Quest, had so many miles on its back and needed so much work done in order to be safe to drive again that it wasn’t feasible to keep any longer, especially considering its poor performance in the snow, being a front wheel only vehicle and very large and heavy.

My new car, which I road tested in the freak snow storm I mentioned earlier, is positively amazing in the snow.  It’s a Subaru Outback which I named Lorien Lisbetha (yes, I know, it’s weird, but I name all my cars ).  I absolutely love my new car, so much so that I’m surprised I don’t miss T’pol more.  But Lorien has everything I previously had, needed, and/or loved, and more, like satellite radio and bluetooth integration.  What more could I ask for?!

And of course, to conclude, my 2011 movies’ list:

9
Black Swan
Contagion
How to Train Your Dragon
The Descendants

8
Beginners
Frost/Nixon
Grey Gardens
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Megamind
Moon
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Super 8
Tangled
The Adjustment Bureau
The Fighter
The Help
The King's Speech
Where the Wild Things Are
X-Men: First Class

7
Alpha Dog
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Flawless
Iron Man 2
Mars Needs Moms
Stand By Me
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Debt
The Messenger
Thor
True Grit
W.
Winter’s Bone
Zack and Miri Make a Porno

6
Battle: Los Angeles
Dracula
Duplicity
Hellboy
In Time
Salt
The Day the Earth Stood Still

5
Eclipse
Gothika
Stargate Continuum

4
Clash of the Titans

3
Land of the Dead
New Moon

47 titles this past year, not bad, but not that many either.  I guess I’ll have to cut back on the television shows I watch on a regular basis if I want to watch more movies…

So, no movie earned a perfect 10, but at least only six titles earned insufficient grades.  And if I had to pick my top 5 movies for the year, they’d be:

Black Swan
The Descendants
Frost/Nixon
How to Train Your Dragon
The King's Speech

Clearly, there’s no contest here, and Black Swan takes the crown for 2011, for its originality, its freshness, its artistry, and its excellent cinematography, direction, acting, and score.  On the other hand, the shame of being the lowliest stinker in the cesspool goes to New Moon, the second chapter in the Twilight saga.  What a load of crap that movie was.

OK, that’s it for 2011.  On to a new year now and to hoping it’ll be exciting and full of good things!!

The War Is Over

Or at the very least the presence of the US military in Iraq is.  This is the Breaking News alert I received from CNN yesterday:

The United States officially ended its mission in Iraq on Thursday, nearly nine years after it led an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Baghdad for the ceremony to personally thank the U.S. troops who have served there, as well as Iraqi security forces.

All U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by the end of the month after Washington and Baghdad failed to agree on terms under which they could remain.

There were about 5,500 American troops in Iraq as of Tuesday, the most recent day American officials in Iraq gave CNN figures.

More from the CNN article:

Hussein's regime proved easy to topple, but no weapons of mass destruction were found, and the United States and its allies were left occupying a country where they were not greeted as liberators -- despite the prediction of Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney.

Iraq erupted into sectarian violence, leaving U.S. troops to try to contain what threatened to become a civil war. Improvised explosive device or IED became a household term; traumatic brain injuries, a signature wound of the war.

[…] In all, the United States spent more than $800 billion in Iraq.

But Panetta reflected on a greater cost.

He said the United States was "deeply indebted" to all Americans in uniform. Nearly 4,500 of them were killed in this war. More than 30,000, wounded.

[…] No one knows for sure how many Iraqis who have been killed since March 2003, but the independent public database Iraq Body Count has compiled reports of more than 150,000 between the invasion and October 2010, with four out of five dead being civilians.

Thousands of other Iraqis struggle to cope with lives marred by war. For them, the battle goes on as the Americans leave behind a fragile nation struggling to establish democracy, struggling to establish stability.

Violence still claims innocent lives in Iraq. People are frustrated with the lack of electricity. Baghdad is awash in trash. No one can predict Iraq's future without the presence of Americans.

I wonder how different the situation would be in the Middle East and for the US in the world had Bush not invaded Iraq after 9/11.  Given what we’ve witnessed with the Arab Spring revolts, Saddam Hussein would have likely been toppled by his own people, supported by the UN/Clinton embargos and no-fly zones that very effectively undermined his rule.

I guess we’ll never know, but the thought of all those lives lost and money wasted compels me to wonder…

Beauty

A marvelous short video accompanied by the profound thoughts of Richard Feynman:

Celebrating Women!

March 8th is International Women’s Day, and 2011 is the centennial as well.

The following video with Daniel Craig, narrated by Judi Dench, illustrates why equality is important for everyone.

The shocking statistics mentioned by Ms. Dench make me wonder about my daughter’s future.  What kind of discrimination will she face in the world simply because of her gender?  Will she be one of the unlucky ones who end up being victims in worse ways?

I hope not.

2010, the year that was

The beginning of a new year means it’s time for another year-end review post.  2010 was not a particularly happy year, even though there were some bright spots.

The low was definitely losing my dear cousin Elena to cancer.  She was my age and very dear to me, and unfortunately there was nothing that could be done to save her.  She left behind a husband and two young daughters that will surely miss her endlessly.

Pretty much the same thing happened to the husband of a friend of my best friend Vittorio, which only compounded the year’s sadness.

My work visa was renewed for three more years, which is a good thing, but my job kept getting worse.  I feel more and more isolated and less and less appreciated and I don’t have a choice but to stick around, since in this economy finding another job would be unthinkable.

On the political front, President Barack Obama, who had given us all so much hope, caused us gays a lot of heartaches and headaches with his continual refusals to forcefully step up to our defenses and instead keep raising stumbling blocks that only slowed our progress down.  Now that the Democrats have lost the House and saw their supermajority in the Senate shrink, even less will be accomplished in general, and specifically on the gay rights front.  Thankfully, just when all hope seemed vanished, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was finally repealed, which was a victory so huge we haven’t yet seen all of its benefits.

On the environmental front, in 2010 the greenhouse effect got worse, but countless idiots still deny its very existence.  We also witnessed the biggest man-made natural disaster in history with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, whose ill effects will be felt by both humans and animals for decades to come.

Fortunately there were some highs as well.  Ray kept being very successful at his job(s), finally allowing us to actually afford some improvements on the house.  We added a playroom downstairs for the kids, by finishing half the basement, and a patio with a marvelous gazebo outside for us.  I can’t wait for the spring to finally start using them...

The kids are doing all right, although we’re still dealing with a series of behavioral issues with our son Daniel.  The dogs on the other hand, are getting old.  Diablo is still in excellent shape for her age, but we can tell that she’s slowing down and sometimes has a lot of trouble getting around.  Mina is still her usual hyper self, but her separation anxiety has gotten much worse, so much so that she’s now heavily medicated.

Finally, the high of the year was my road trip with my best friend Vittorio, which took us to my number one destination ever: the Grand Canyon National Park.  It is breathtakingly beautiful.  Words simply cannot describe its vastness, greatness or beauty.  It really is a wonder, a marvel to behold.

We also saw the Vermillion Cliffs, Hoover Dam, Route 66, Lake Powell, Marble Canyon, Glen Canyon Horseshoe Band and the marvelous Monument Valley, just to name a few.  We concluded the trip in Las Vegas, which turned out to be more attractive than I expected it to be.

All things considered, this was my favorite road trip to date, and I feel incredibly lucky to have seen such unbelievable wonders as only nature can create.

To conclude, the movies.  2010 was a very prolific year.  Between my few trips to the theater and a bunch of rentals (from Netflix and the cable premium channels) I saw 75 movies last year.  Here’s the recap:

10
March of the Penguins
The Kids Are All Right
Toy Story 3

9
Avatar
Earth
Food, Inc.
Inception
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Temple Grandin
The Social Network

8
(500) Days of Summer
127 Hours
A Serious Man
Coraline
Despicable Me
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Mamma Mia!
Pan's Labyrinth
Saturno Contro
Sherlock Holmes
Shutter Island
Sunshine
The Hangover
The Hurt Locker
The Informant!
The Road
The Town
Up In The Air
Wanted
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Zombieland

7
28 Weeks Later
Alice in Wonderland
An Education
Bee Movie
Crazy Heart
Easy A
I Love You, Man
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Pandorum
Paranormal Activity
RED
Surf's Up
The Blind Side
The Crazies
The Orphanage
The Polar Express
The Princess and the Frog
Treasure Planet
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Wedding Crashers
Yossi and Jagger

6
Cat's Eye
Free Willy
Heavenly Creatures
It's Complicated
Quantum of Solace
Resident Evil
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
Splice
The Invasion
The Lovely Bones

5
2012
Altered
Lions for Lambs
New Nightmare
Shrek the Third
The Book of Eli

4
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Space Chimps
Twilight

2
Diary of the Dead

As is to be expected, there were some clunkers, but overall I saw a lot of very good movies, and if I had to come up with my list of 10 Best Picture nominations (following the new rules of the Academy Awards...) they would be:

Avatar
District 9
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
March of the Penguins
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Temple Grandin
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
Up in the Air

And my Best Picture of 2010 was:

Toy Story 3

An unconventional choice that will no doubt be different from whatever the Academy ends up crowning, but a necessary choice for the overall achievement of this animated movie.

How often does the third chapter in a series improve upon both its predecessors?  How often do animated characters move an audience to tears and laughter as heartfelt as those solicited by this cinematic gem?  How often does a screenplay bring an audience back in time to a period we all lived through -- the loss of innocence, the moving on from our childhood interests?

For all its glorious perfection, Toy Story 3 was the best movie I saw in 2010.

Now on to 2011, since I already have 3 movies to blog about...

Never underestimate the power of your actions

This letter to a friend is incredibly powerful:

Link here.

2009 - The Year That Was

I know I’m terribly late for this end-of-the-year post, but I wanted to make sure all the movies posts were in to include them.

2009 was a year with highs and lows, as usual, but this year they both were very accentuated.

The high was finally getting to go on our long-in-the-works honeymoon as part of our first family trip to Italy.  The Italy visit went great.  The kids got to spend time where I grew up, visited with their grandparents, and finally met their 2 cousins.  Also, all my relatives embraced us with love, which made me proud of my extended family and shattered many of my own beliefs about their closed-mindedness.

The honeymoon was spent on a cruise (my first ever, and definitely not the last) in the Mediterranean.  We had a great time, got to spend a few days together without the kids, and saw many beautiful places in a short span of time.

The low of the year, unfortunately, was the loss of my father-in-law, Big Ray, who passed away at the end of August leaving a big hole in the lives of everyone.  He had been sick for a long time, so his passing was not unexpected, but painful nonetheless.  He was a good man.  Rest in peace.  You will be remembered.

Work went on as usual and I got recertified for OnBase without problems, which was a relief.  From now on, re-certifications should go pretty smoothly.  2009 also had ups and downs on my slow path towards the Green Card.  While my latest petition got audited and seemed like all was lost, in the end it was approved, and I’m now one big step closer to that much desired permit.

Ray’s adventure as an independent worker had its challenges, but is still ongoing, in spite of having had to take a full time job because of the tough economic times.  The kids keep growing at a fast pace and seem to flourish, which is always a relief.

One thing Ray and I realized is that 2009 was probably the last year the two of them believed in Santa Claus, and that by the end of the year they’ll have figured out (or they’ll have been told) that there’s no big guy dressed in red living at the North Pole, building toys for all the kids of the world.  Oh well, Christmas will still be fun, even without that long protected secret.

On the cinematic front, as predicted at the end of 2008, the roster, thanks primarily to Netflix, ended up being much richer, with a grand total of 60 movies watched!  Many were good, a few not so much.  Some were great and others stunk pretty bad.  Here’s a quick recap:

9
Kung Fu Panda
Sex and the City
Sicko
Slumdog Millionaire
Star Trek
Up

8
Amores Perros
Changeling
Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The
Eastern Promises
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Gomorra
Hancock
In Bruges
Iron Man
Julie & Julia
Little Children
Milk
Omen, The
Outrage
Revolutionary Road
There Will Be Blood
Transamerica

7
101 Dalmatians
Anastasia
Babel
Balto
Déjà Vu
Doubt
Enchanted
Horton Hears a Who!
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The
I Am Legend
Incredible Hulk, The
Into the Wild
Kite Runner, The
Lakeview Terrace
Monster House
Prayers For Bobby
Shortbus
X Files: I Want to Believe, The

6
Dark City
Eating Out
Ghost Town
Monsters vs Aliens
Rendition
Shooter
Tropic Thunder

5
Brüno
Cloverfield
Early Frost, An
Happy Feet
Regular Guys
Robots
Time Traveler's Wife, The
Transformers
Under One Roof

4
Reservation Road

3
Terminator Salvation

2
Solaris

So no movie got the highest grade, but I can’t complain with all the 9s and 8s in that list.  Unfortunately, there were a few bad apples in the bunch, but overall I’d say it was a pretty good year.

The 5 Best Movies of 2009 were:

1. Changeling
2. Milk
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. Transamerica
5. Up

And the Best Picture of 2009 was … by a nose … Slumdog Millionaire, which once more matches with the Best Picture Oscar winner of 2009.

2010, with a renewed subscription to Netflix and a promise I made to myself to start going to the movies more often, like I used to do up until a few years back, is poised to be even richer than 2009, and I already have 6 titles to blog about, so I better get moving…

So long 2009, hello 2010!!

Good Bye 2008

Another year ends, a new one begins. As usual, one hopes that the new one will be better than the last, but I honestly cannot complain too much about 2008, the year I finally got to quit the school.

It is hard to describe how good it feels to finally have free nights and weekends (sounds like a cell phone plan), to be able to leave work without having to worry about anything until the morning after. I've even found myself slightly lost when faced with all this free time. I can't wait for the spring, when the nice weather will allow me to spend some time outside and work in the gardens.

Getting my paperwork straightened out was definitely the highlight of 2008.

The year also presented several traveling opportunities, a rarity I should say. I was able to go to Italy for a week to see my parents and friends. I spent a nice long weekend with Fabrizio in New York City. I went to California with my family to visit Ray's friend Sue and loved all I saw. And we closed out the year by going on a 5-day road trip during which we touched 4 states: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. I love traveling and I love road trips :-)

2008 remained weak on the movie-viewing front, with only 26 titles at final count, and the best movie turned out to be 2008's Best Picture Oscar winner No Country For Old Men. Following is the list of what I saw with my grades that, probably for the first time ever, didn't fall below 6:

9
No Country for Old Men
The Dark Knight
8.5
Juno
The Prestige
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
Wall-E
8
Beauty and the Beast
Charlotte's Web
Flags of Our Fathers
Ratatouille
Zodiac
7.5
Blood Diamond
The Descent
Disturbia
Mulan
Religulous
7
The Air I Breathe
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Gabbianella e il Gatto
The Illusionist
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Meet the Robinsons
Tarzan
6
Jarhead
Night at the Museum
Open Season

2009 seems poised to be richer on that front, with 4 titles already to review and a slew more to come, since Ray's mom got us a subscription to Netflix for Christmas. However, movies will have to fight for my free time, since I still watch a few TV series, love playing with the Wii, and have finally started reading books again!!

2008 was also the year when the political pendulum firmly swung to the left again. The Democrats made big gains in both houses of Congress and, above all, regained the White House, with the victory of Barack Obama, the first black president of the US!! He inherits a troubled country from W, but the whole world has high hopes that he'll get it back on the right track.

As for gays' rights, it was a mixed bag. We lost Proposition 8 in California (as well as in Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas), where for the first time legal same-sex marriage was undone by a simple majority of the popular vote. However, we won full same-sex marriage rights right here in Connecticut, which now joins Massachusetts as the only 2 states were gays can legally marry.

I guess the low point of the year has been the ongoing trouble Danny's behavior caused the family. For 6 full months he just wouldn't behave in any daycare (we tried 5!! -- and not by choice...).

Then he finally settled down when he started kindergarten in September (and daycare number 6!), but he still keeps misbehaving at home. I think he's just too immature for his age and eventually will outgrow this, but in the meantime, it's like dealing with a 2 year old, and it's incredibly frustrating.

Another unfortunate event was Big Ray's declining health and his Parkinson's diagnosis, but he seems to have since recovered and is now doing pretty good. He'll turn 79 in a month!!

So, good bye 2008, you were pretty good to me, and hello 2009!

Let's see what it will bring me.

A quiet Sunday afternoon

The kids and Ray went to visit with Big Ray and I stayed home working on a paper that is due this coming Thursday. The sky is cloudy, but it's not raining yet. I'm outside, on the deck, with the dogs sniffing and listening in on nature's scents and noises. All I hear is the call of a squirrel, a few birds singing, someone mowing a lawn in the distance and the wind gently moving the leaves. Some jazz is also quietly playing in the background. Heaven.

The Sun

Lying on the couch in the family room this afternoon, soaking in the dying sunlight, I thought, the Sun, our star, gives us life. We wouldn't be here without it.

Is the Sun God?

Christmas 2007

Yesterday was Christmas and the day went very well. The kids were so good in the morning, they waited until 8.30 or so without making a peep, so Ray and I got some rest (I sure needed it, since I've been up every night playing with my new Wii until the wee hours of the morning...). Then, we got them up and they were literally jumping out of their skins to go see if Santa had come to bring them presents. I honestly cannot believe how they can just believe in something like that so wholeheartedly. I frankly don't recall a time when I did believe in Santa, although I'm sure I did when I was a little kid. Anyway, the whole presents-opening operation went well and the kids enjoyed everything we got for them (especially a book called "Walter, the Farting Dog" and the foul-mouthed movie "The Cat in the Hat," since they're in the potty-words stage, thank you Santa for those...). The afternoon proceeded at Ray's parents' house with a second presents-opening session that looked like it would never, ever end. I kept seeing boxes and boxes, no matter how many the kids were opening. Dinner was very good, although at that point, and right after that, I was just about ready for bed, especially since I had to get up and come to work the day after. I didn't get to close my eyes until midnight though, and not because I was playing with the Wii :( Oh well, Christmas comes only once a year I guess ... Now, on to New Year's Eve and a new year that hopefully will be better than this one. I for one am quite eager to put 2007 behind me.

Still home recovering

I ended up having surgery on the night of October 19^th, came home the following Monday, and I won't be back to work until November 12^th.

The surgery was done as an emergency when the doctor finally saw on a new CAT scan that my colon was not where it was supposed to be, but was instead flipped up next to my stomach. He also saw an anomaly around the stomach, but felt like that was just a fluke.

It turned out that the fluke was the real deal: my omentum had inexplicably twisted on its axis and a part of it had died as a consequence of the blood flow getting cut. The omentum had then inflamed the entire area and pulled up the colon to its new location. Once the part of the omentum that had died was removed, the colon went back to its normal location and everything else looked fine.

It's nice to know the problem is fixed, even though the recovery is quite slow. I hope I'll feel up to go to work in a week, because I don't really have a way of delaying that any further.

My biggest regret is that the surgeon went in thinking he had to do one thing, and it turned out to be something quite different, but at that point the incision had been made, and it's much longer than it would have been necessary if he had known what the problem really was.

I can't really blame him though. He told me he has no idea how this happened and has never seen anything like it in over 20 years of surgeries, unless in people who had previously had abdominal surgeries and therefore had some scar tissue, which could cause this kind of twisting motion. A nurse told me the same thing.

And then I also read on an internet article that since omental torsion was first reported in 1899, there have been less than 250 such cases. Also, this condition is so rare that its rate of successful pre-operative diagnosis is between 0.6 and 4.8%. That's very low unfortunately.

I guess I'll just have to get used to seeing this huge scar in the middle of my abdomen from now on. It won't be easy, but it could be worse.

An unwanted American experience

I'm referring to the fact that I' m currently, for the first time, recovered in an American hospital, and I have no idea when I'll be able to go home. That's one experience I could have done without, but what can I do? I started having a stomachache on Monday, and when it hadn't gotten better by Tuesday around midday, Ray suggested I go get checked.

The doctor than told me to go to the ER right away, in case it was appendicitis or gallbladder, before it got any worse.

Problem is, it was none of those things, and they still haven't figured out what it is. Meanwhile, the pain is getting worse and there's no explanation.

They already gave me all the tests they could think of (now they'll repeat one) and they are totally puzzled by my ailment. I've become what you'd call the Mystery Patient!

All my vitals are normal, so it's even more puzzling, because they have no pointers to any "known" illnesses. All there is, is the sharp pain in my abdomen.

I just hope they figure something out soon, but I don't want to go home in this condition, because at least here I'm receiving the care I might need at some point.

Ohio

YES!! I just found out! I passed the test and I'm now an OnBase Certified Installer, although I still have to get my MCP before I can officially get my Hasp key and actually be able to install or activate anything.

It sure feels good to have put that behind me though. Man was that a tough week!

And Ray was wonderful during the weekend. He took the kids out for a hike on Saturday and to his parents on Sunday, allowing me to get some much needed rest. Isn't he adorable?

Ohio

Day Four. This is it. In about 10 hours I'll be taking the test for the second, and hopefully, last time.

I feel quite prepared and much more confident than I did last year, but with the way they word the test, you simply never know how it's gonna play out.

I just hope I pass it this time.