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It’s True: New York City Is so Much Cooler, and So Is My Hometown.

Since moving to New York City, I’ve come to understand why so many people from here felt so down when they came to my little podunk hometown of Sanford, NC. New York City really is that much cooler in so many ways. Don’t get me wrong.  I love my hometown for many reasons.  This big [...]

The Buffy Project Begins: Welcome to the Hellmouth Craptacular

My project to watch and blog Buffy the Vampire Slayer has begun.  I watched the first two hours, which I assume constitute the original two-hour premier.  My expectations were low.  They were not exceeded.  It wasn’t that the opening show was bad, per se.  It’s that it was an opening show at all. I remember [...]

New Project – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Many of my friends know that I like to watch TV shows from start to finish.  Netflix has made this easier, so I get more opportunities to see new shows.  I decided it was time to choose a new show, that I’ve never watched before. What’s more, I’d blog the experience. This meant that the [...]

What’s So Bad About Google+ Integration with Google Search?

There has been a lot of complaining lately about Google’s integration of Google+ results into its search. There have been a lot of accusations. Many say we can no longer trust Google’s search results. Some have gone so far as to say that Google is going back on its pledge to “Do no evil.”

I see things a bit differently. Google offers a variety of services, many of which can be called apps in their own right. Google wants to integrate these services into a single app, each piece of which integrates into each other. The black toolbar added recently took a major step in this direction. The inclusion of social results from Google+ is yet another step.

Live from New York – Lockjaw has MOVED

Through a sequence of events over the past few years, Lockjaw’s Spouse has advanced in her career and education to the point where she was able to land a job at a great New York City charter school. As a result, we have left North Carolina behind and moved the family to Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. While North Carolina will always be home, New York City has much to offer even the grumpiest of ogres.

I am now 5 days into my new life in the city. The wife arrived a few days after I did, having spent 5 weeks studying with Father Reginald Foster, the greatest latinist in the world. We are now getting to know the neighborhood, exploring the nearby blocks for interesting places, and planning our apartment.

There are many ways that New York City is different from North Carolina. Some are good, and some are just plain weird. For instance, when you get a beer with your meal in a restaurant in New York the waiter must pour a bit of beer into your glass so that, ostensibly, the beer is not being served from the bottle.

One of my favorite things about New York City is signage. There are billboards. There are multi-colored signs above nearly every store. There are neon signs in the windows. North Carolina’s cities are creating more and more sign ordinances, which have always driven me crazy. My hometown of Sanford is one of the worst, though Cary has the most well-known. Limitations on signs are unusually strong. As a consumer trying to find a store, it can be very troubling to drive back and forth looking for a particular store only to discover that the sign is a small block on a larger, yet still small sign conglomerate with no real differentiation in font, color, or visibility. Small businesses are harmed by government regulation that does not allow them to set themselves apart from the other stores nearby, or make themselves identifiable from the road.

New York is not this way. Signs are part of the flavor of the city. What would Times Square be without the billboards but a plaza amongst tall buildings?

On the other hand, New York places benches all arounds its parks, but does not allow you to sit on one near a children’s playground unless you have children of your own. This is supposed to prevent child predators from being around the children, but I have a hard time believing that this is truly effective. This prior restraint on law-abiding citizens isn’t going to prevent the miniscule minority of perverts (perverts being a minority of the citizenry, and predators being a minority of the perverts) from finding children. Face it, if they can have police to ticket people for sitting on provided benches, why can’t they have them to watch for predators?

One of the greatest things about New York City is food. Food is everywhere. In my two trips to the city, and my short time since moving here, I have had some of the most amazing meals I have ever eaten. The HK Fritata at Hell’s Kitchen’s HK Diner was great. The sushi at two different restaurants was the best I have ever eaten. Junior’s cheesecake truly deserves its “best in the city” reputation. Last night I had “Enchiladas al Vino” at a mexican-influenced restaurant west of Broadway in Washington Heights that amazed me. Imagine my surprise when the lady at the Dunkin Donuts told me the delicious cuban sandwich I had up the street was “no good” before telling me where to find one better.

I look forward to discovering more about the city. I am loving the neighborhood. I am loving the neighbors. I love the subway system, and the grid layout of the streets.

It’s a good day.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark Review

I’ve reviewed a movie or three, and a couple new music releases in the past, but this has never really been a review blog. This, though, will be my first time reviewing a Broadway musical.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is still in the preview period before the official opening. Initial reviews weren’t so great. Due to that fact, and some accidents during previews, the show was shut down for three weeks for a major retooling. I was able to see the show on the second night after the retooling, so I had high hopes.

The show opened with Peter Parker telling the story of Arachne, who was punished for blaspheming against the gods in her weaving. As the report progresses the scene transitions to Arachne, hanging above the stage while dancers hang from cloth strips, swinging while more strips slide upward until they have woven a backdrop to the scene. It was stunning. It was so stunning that the crowd gave a standing ovation. That’s right, the OPENING SONG received a standing ovation.

The story is one with which we are all familiar. Peter Parker is a geek who is picked on by the jocks at school. During a school field trip he is bitten by a spider from a scientific experiment in the laboratory of Dr. Norman Osborn. Through a series of events he becomes a crimefighter, while also developing his relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

What’s great about this show is that it flows very well through the life of Peter Parker. The villains are handled as comic relief to offset against the much more serious story of Parker and his relationships.

When the music or story felt weak, which was rare, it was during the parts which were needed to establish parts of the story to come. Overall the music was excellent. The story was very well done, and familiar.

The wire-work ranged from the subtle chat on the balcony, hanging over the stage, to the spectacular flying battle. The work in the opening scene was simple, yet complex in a way that set the stage for the brilliance that was to come.

It was a great show. I am glad to have been able to see it after the retooling, and would gladly see it again. Now, where’s the soundtrack?

How Music Companies Can Make Easy Money on iTunes

Back in the 1980s, a lot of great music was released. Fans of a particular artist could purchase the albums on LP or Cassette. CDs were starting to become more popular, and the 45rpm single was still a common find in many stores. Among these options, fans could get all of the songs from the [...]

Cursive – Who Thought This was a Good Idea?

I have a vivid memory from a very young age of scribbling a bunch of loops on a piece of paper with a blue ballpoint pen. My young mind was intrigued with how long swirls and peaks could form words. Of course, since I was still too young to read I was writing gibberish.

As I grew older writing became a constant part of my life. Much of my early education involved drawing block letters in large spaces on lined paper. Every year the spaces grew smaller in order to refine my handiwork. I always knew that my artistic skills were not great when it came to drawing lines, and my simple block letters were no exception.

In third grade I finally reached what I thought was the holy grail of writing. In Mrs. Powers’ class I learned to write in cursive. I learned the letters, and how to string them together easily. Of course, my cursive writing was only legible if I wrote slowly and carefully. In addition I had adopted special forms of certain letters such as the capitalized T and F from Mrs. Powers’ own style, rather than her lessons. She taught the “proper” way, but I preferred the letters as she wrote them. To me it was as much a preference in style as it was in legibility.

The next few years I dutifully wrote cursive in class. I pitied my poor teachers who had to read my writing, and I still do. My cursive legibility relied as much on the readers’ expectations as my own skills. This, I learned later, was a common thread between most writers of the cursive script. Honestly, can you say that you’ve never found a beautifully written page that had words that could only be discerned based on the words around them?

After Mrs. Powers, the most important person in my life of the handwritten word was my 8th grade history teacher, Mr. Keith. One day Mr. Keith pulled me out of class and had a very frank discussion with me.

“David,” he said, “your handwriting is terrible. Some letters angle to the left. Some angle to the right. They should all angle to the right because the eye flows better that way.”

His next words changed my life.

“Honestly, if you can’t write any better than that, then print.”

It really was that simple. The rigid requirements of school said that I should use cursive script, because it was a skill I should practice. Another requirement was that my writing be legible enough to read. The two requirements, in my case, were contrary. I had, though, been trying to meet both requirements. Mr. Keith helped me understand that there could be a choice.

From that day forward I turned in my classwork in printed form. I would have turned in my homework the same way, except that I rarely saw homework as a requirement.

Every year most teachers would approach me and inform me that I should be turning in my assignments in cursive. Printing my assignments was not acceptable, because I was expected to use cursive script. Since I had learned a bit about making decisions on my own in the face of conflicting instructions, I knew what to do. I would smile, nod, and agree to use cursive script.

I would then turn in my next assignment in cursive, without the care required to make my assignment reasonably legible. After that one assignment I would return to my printed words without a word, or a complaint from the teacher.

Cursive, I learned, was pretty but useless. As a system of communication, cursive was imprecise. With practice my writing never improved beyond what I learned in third grade. I had gained in speed, but not legibility. Cursive writing was not for me, and I began to think it wasn’t so great for everyone else either.

Several years ago the news came out that schools were no longer pushing cursive writing skills as a necessity. I was thrilled with the news. Not only would the new kids no longer be forced to learn a form of communication that was barely effective across the general population, but also there was hope that one day I could read a prescription form.

Now when I write by hand I prefer an all-caps block lettering. Occasionally I throw in a lower-case vowel such as when I write the word “email.”

I think the biggest lesson I learned through all of this wasn’t really about cursive script at all. It was about rules. To my teachers writing cursive was the rule. I was expected to follow the rule. The rule, as it turns out, wasn’t 100% right. Learning the difference between rule and right is important to us all, and cursive script was a tool that helped me understand.

Jared Loughner – Prophet?

Although there are very few statements to build on so far, we should be on the lookout for the next phase of the Jared Loughner lunacy. Jared’s worries about mind control and some variant of illiteracy that made sense to him contain just enough of a link to reality that they will spark interest in [...]

Arizona Gunman Planning Ahead? Videos from the shooter.

Jared Lee Loughner has a youtube account, and has apparently been identified as the gunman in the Tuscon Arizona shooting of a Democrat Congresswoman. The videos below from his YouTube account indicate a bit of instability and foreshadowing.

The earliest of these was posted a month ago, and the others three weeks ago. One states “In a few days you will know I’m conscience dreaming,” whatever that means. Perhaps it meant he planned to go shoot someone.

Of course, I can’t be 100% sure that these are videos posted by the gunman. If I am mistaken, I apologize, but the details seem to link properly.

*Update – At this link we can see that the shooter had an interest in Drug addiction,health, health conditions, mental health, psychology, and society. As his YouTube videos show, he was a bit incoherent in his writing, so it’s probably a good thing there’s nothing to read there by him.

*Update – A photo of the shooter?