Archive for March, 2009
The Problem with Vampires
Posted by smokingpen in On Writing, concept, opinion on March 29, 2009
I am watching Twilight
Twilight (for those that don’t know) follows Bella on her trek to becoming a vampire. You don’t know this in the first book. From what I hear, she messes with werewolves in the second book and has this odd love triangle going on between a vampire and a werewolf until other stuff happens. And yes, I have an idea of what that “other stuff” is and don’t want to dwell on it.
Moving forward…
Some years ago I discovered the author L.J. Smith. As I recall, the first book of hers I read was about a teenage witch coven and I really enjoyed it. The books were sold in the Y/A section of the bookstore (I was working in at the time… and in bookstores I visit on occasion). Pretty quickly, I’d either purchased or borrowed all of Smith’s books and enjoyed them and then time passed, she stopped publishing, and in the end I pretty much lost track of her.
At the same time, I also saw a series of movies over a series of years that rotated around vampires. The first in the series was, Interview with the Vampire
Then I read Christopher Moore‘s book, Bloodsucking Fiends
Ah, to be a girl who worries about ten extra pounds….
Actually, I have no idea what that is like and as as a result will move forward.
Then I was introduced to the writing of Kim Harrison
Imagine the naive notion of wish fulfillment… that is, at it’s core, what stories about magic are about. You, the individual, are given the opportunity change the world around you through some medium that, depending on what book or story or fantasy or horror element you are reading, ends up being about tapping into a mystic energy. Different people call it different things, but the outcome is still the same, changing something around you.
And yet, this post isn’t about magic or witches, it is about vampires.
The problem with writers who write about vampires is that they write from the perspective of someone who has not lived very long and yet, have lived hundreds of years. Take Twilight as an example. Edward Cullen is a vampire. As I remember, he’s been alive for somewhere around 100 years. And yet, when watching the movie or reading the book, the attitude of the character is someone who has lived for a period of less than twenty years rather than more than 80 years. As a result, there is a pretty serious disconnect between what one expects from the character(s) as a vampire and what one gets. The problem is that Edward should be more mature and by extension should have to force himself to act younger than he is… but switching into maturity and wisdom that doesn’t belong to someone of his apparent age. And yet, instead of maturity the outcome is immaturity.
It is through immaturity that the audience then finds the disconnect. There are more things about the story that cause disconnects… though I am not all that interested in outlining what Stephanie Meyer has done wrong or why I agree with Steven King about how she is actually a very bad writer. What she did right was to tap into the primal need for fear in love and as a result this spread like wildfire among women and girls and we have a modern day Jane Austen… who, also, wasn’t that great of a writer and tapped into some rather basic needs of her principle audience.
The outcome, for me, is that, “No,” I don’t enjoy the movie. I did need to watch it alone so that people wouldn’t tell me what I though about it before I gave it it’s fair shake. Along with that, I felt it was… mean spirited (???) to attack Kristen Stewart for what she says in interviews without first getting a glimpse of her acting ability (poor, actually). Kristin Stewart likes to say a lot of things. They are not thought out. And they end up being rather mean spirited and make her sound stupid. On top of which, the dialogue she is supposed to say doesn’t work coming out of her mouth. Instead of sounding more intelligent, she sounds like she is trying to sound more intelligent.
Vampires, however, become disinteresting because they are one dimensional and, in almost all cases where the author attempts to make them three dimensional, they also fail. In short, the idea that someone could, potentially, live for periods of hundreds and thousands of years would indicate that the potential for human growth and development should extend to the vampire growing as well. Instead, the vampire often becomes stagnant in whatever era they were most comfortable and as a result, you get the idea of what the individual might have been like say, during the reign of the pharoah’s.
As a result, all of the experiences and learning opportunities and etc. that took place from that time to the modern are lost because that particular individual stopped (effectively) experiencing life from that point forward.
And this is one of the serious flaws with vampire stories. On the one hand, you get the desire to live indefiniately. On the other hand, that long life requires the individual to eat blood and deal with other aspects of the curses. The outcome is that authors have very little ability to place themselves in the shoes of the undead and as a result don’t write compelling enough stories. At least, not compelling enough for me.While all of that is true, another truism is that Twilight as a book and as a movie sucks.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
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Flipped and Upside Down
Posted by smokingpen in Erin, work on March 24, 2009
My life seems to be upside down. As the world goes to sleep, I am awake and heading to work. The human body was not designed to be awake all night and to sleep all day. And yet, there are jobs, like stocking at “this place” that require all night work. I guess I can (once again) be grateful I am not having to work with customer at “this place” during normal hours. Though, I have to admit, sleeping during the day and being awake at night is proving to be a rather odd adjustment.
On one hand, Erin gets to see (and feel) what its like to have me unavailable during normal working hours. That is proving to be interesting. Especially since, if things get bad (theoretically) she can come and get me. Last weekend my sleeping patterns were adjusted for long naps in the daytime around trips and outings with wife and child. It was an interesting adjustment that get shunted back to long nights and short days.
What gets me is that people actually do this for years on end. I can’t really imagine that being the case, for me; but until I find something else or better I get to sleep days and work nights. Fun!
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
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A Week’s Worth of Graveyards
Posted by smokingpen in Politics, opinion, work on March 21, 2009
I spent the last week working the graveyard shift. I get to do that for the foreseeable future. This is not something I am interested in doing long term, or something that I would change given that I am not fond of “this place” as an employer. I think if I have to work for “this place” the graveyard shift is the one to work.
Essentially, my job has me putting health and beauty products onto shelves. What I noted, almost immediately, was that people have a tendency to just shove anything into any spot that is available. As a result, trying to figure out what should be on the shelf as compared to what needs to be on the shelf and what is on the shelf is rather difficult. The outcome is a lot of time re-arranging shelves and product to ensure that the impending inventory coming up happens (relatively) quickly and that when I have a cart full of product I can put it places.
With all of that said, my sleeping habits have shifted from night to sleeping during the daytime. Daylight sleep is not cool. I know from previous experience that it is difficult on the body. We set up the office with a blackout curtain that I augmented with a sheet (around the outside) to block most of the light. We also started running white noise while I am sleeping so as to block most of the ambient noise in the house. The outcome is that I can get eight pretty good hours of sleep in from when I go to bed to when I wake up.
All-in-all, though, I am glad to have a job in the current economy. The governmnent tells me that things will begin looking better by the end of summer. Except, the current chairmen of the Federal Reserve Bank says the recession may do a 180, but that we can continue to expect to see increasing unemployment rates and foreclosures and bankruptcies. Talk about exciting. Sure, 2009 is supposed to be a golden year and at the same time it won’t do me a whole lot of good.
What I have noted, going into bookstores and walking through the business section are books that are written to help people survive a layoff/recession and books that are there to tell you what you can do to have a recession proof job. What is a recession proof job anyway? When money goes away or your piece of the financial pie is smaller than you want it to be, this means that any job is potentially vulnerable. Sure, some companies are set up to withstand the financial buffettings of a down market, but keep the market down long enough and no one survives.
We don’t know how bad the Great Depression was or how large the unemployment numbers were. We do know that a lot of people suffered and there is a lot written about that suffering. Many of our great American writers are a product of that era. My grandparents lived through it (on both sides) and as a result the way they handled money and lived their lives was influenced by bank failures and a lack of work.
I am not suggesting that we are in a similar situation as the Great Depression. Rather, I am saying that we don’t know how long this will go on. I don’t know how long I will have to work for “this place.” We just don’t know and I think that’s the point
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
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Changes Needed
Posted by smokingpen in Politics, opinion, philosophy on March 18, 2009
And, “No,” I am not talking about me or this site (though I am sure both need changes).
When I voted for President Obama, I expected he would do exactly what he has been doing, working the Democratic party line. In fact, I expected him to work the highly liberal line. Hilary Clinton would’ve done the same thing except she would’ve kept the United States at war longer (because she is a woman and because she has to prove she has the ability to make those hard decisions). The outcome is that I am neither surprised nor disappointed nor upset nor terrified nor anything else by what has been happening. Regardless of what the (now) former president Bush is saying about his time in office and the twelve hardest decisions he had to make while in office. Just because a decision is hard does not mean it is right (or wrong) or even appropriate.
What gets me about politics, today, is that we have two parties and one or the other claims they are the “party of change” (as opposed to a “candidate of change“). The problem with this statement isn’t that each party claims to be the bastion of change, but rather that we can expect any change based off of choosing one party or the other. The very nature of change implies that something has to be different. Since neither the Republicans or the Democrats have done anything (significantly) different in decades and the only change one can expect when voting for one party or the other is whether or not a single issue is going to be decided more liberally or conservatively. In fact, you can pretty accurately determine how any specific piece of legislation is going to be decided based on who is in the majority and who is president.
This is not change. In fact, we haven’t had change in this country in enough years that I think we are “drinking the sand” not because we are deceived, but because we no longer know the difference.
One of the problems that exist is entirely financial. Because I make less money this year than I did last year and am working at a job where I am severely underemployed, my wife and I (and by extension our child) have to spend less money. We have less money coming in and therefore have to make sure less money goes out. This is not just true of my family but also millions of other families. We get to spend less and yet the government, instead of spending less, feels it necessary to spend more. To wit, AIG has received hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money. The big news this past week has been the hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses the company is paying out to its executives (some of whom drove the company into the ground). On top of which, it is the government that determined AIG was essential to the economy and that the country’s financial future depended on the continued existence of the company.
And yet, on top of that, the budget is still filled with pork and the president still signed it and we are still selling our children down the river because politicians refuse to stop spending money.
One of the things that has made our life a bit harder was that the state of Massachusetts (as in all other states) reduced operating budgets for this year. Before the collapse of the housing market, and the financial market, I was shortlisted on a job that I thought I wanted. After, the budget for the university I was applying to was reduced and all new hire opportunities were eliminated. Unless a job was essential to the function of the university, it wasn’t going to be filled. The outcome is that even states have had to reduce operating expenses for lack of funds.
The United States government has increased, drastically, its spending. Now, in order for the government to increase spending it has to get money from somewhere. In order to get money it has to sell bonds. In order to sell bonds with enough money in it to cover expenses it has to sell them to other countries since individuals don’t have money in the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to trillions of dollars. In short, entire government economies are based on the United States spending money on credit.
What all of this leads to is that we need real change in our country. We need politicians that aren’t aligned with either the Republicans or the Democrats. We need a new way of passing legislation and of stopping the excessive spending. We need new ideas and a new direction.
At present, regardless of who we vote for or what they promise, CHANGE is not a part of their agenda.
CHANGE is merely a buzzword to encourage independents to vote for them.
This country needs real CHANGE and currently, we are not seeing it.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
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Micro or Macro :: talk on unions
Posted by smokingpen in philosophy, work on March 13, 2009
“This place” has an interesting argument about unions. The company is opposed to them. Rightfully so. Unions are bad for business and would negatively affect the bottom line for the shareholders. As the “this place” family owns the majority of the publicly traded company and the company wants to make as much money as possible, the outcome is that the current active leadership of the company (and by extension the “this place” managers and supervisors) find it in their interest to discourage the formation of unions as it would also affect the bottom lines of the people managing the stores.
In short, unions are bad.
What I was told the other day was that it was unnecessary because of the communications policy between management and employees and that unions were designed for the manufacturing industries and didn’t have a place in the retail sector.
Hypothetically, if I were more secure in my financial world, I probably would’ve pointed out a couple of things. First, that the two major grocery stores in the town were both unionized and seemed to function well; and second, that the Truckers Union started by Jimmy Hoffa (who I think should be categorized as in hiding by the FBI rather than dead as most of the conspiracies claim*) which combined truck drivers and produce loaders/unloaders and more. In essence, the union (which I am opposed to in general) actually has a place in many areas of business and society. What “this place” does right is they allow all employees access to management within a very confined area. They even claim a brand new hourly employee could call the CEO of the company and speak to him. Though, I would imagine, the higher up the chain the less likely the employee is actually being listened to. Can I call the CEO? Yes. Will the CEO actually listen to what I have to say? No.
The policy of allowing me (heck, even encouraging me) to call the CEO means that they can tell me that communication exists on all levels and as a result paying a third party to take my complaints to the company is a waste of my money. However, the argument only works on a micro level. In this context, it only works where I have some form of interaction with management and where they have some kind of a relationship with and investment in me. The higher one goes above management and beyond the personal relationships the less true this becomes. In essence, the argument that open communication between the employee and management is a slippery slope fallacy as you head up the chain of management into executives and so on.
However, in order for an employee to move around in the company two things have to be true.
One, the individual has to be sold on the philosophy of the company (it has three parts)
Two, the individual has to believe that at any time they can call the CEO and resolve any problem (if necessary).
As a result, the employee at all levels believe they are in total control of the problems and issues that arise within the working environment when, in reality, the people running the show have to know that the indoctrination of the employee is not in line with the reality of employment. The reality of employment, regardless of anyone’s philosophy or whatnot, is that the employee works at the discretion of the employer. Yes, one could argue that employees at all levels work at the discretion of the customer and that all businesses and all employees have a customer of some kind.
(Note: in a proper business context customer is the individual, group, or business for which you are performing tasks associated with your job. A doctor’s customer is the patient and etc.)
However, in reality and because of overall market share, the employee literally works at the discretion of the company and not at the discretion of the customer. It is in the interest of the employee to make sure that customer’s are taken care of especially when it is the corporate policy to make sure customer’s are taken care of; but the reality (and not the philosophy) is that people work for companies and companies continue to exist as a result of market share and not as a result of the fickleness of customers. In the context of “this place,” I can guarantee that market share is insanely high and that “this place” has a tendency to drive out smaller businesses through homogenization of product location.
The outcome is not that I can’t call the CEO but that the CEO and Board of Directors are not as likely to listen to me when I speak and are more likely to listen to shareholders and market share. As a result of this, and under the corporate nature of paying as little as the market will bare to employees, a union is necessary to change corporate attitude. Unions are designed to exist on a macro level on not on the micro level.
Yes, inviting a union into a store means that the individual has to make complaints through their union representative even at the store level. The outcome, though, is moving the combined complaints, wages, and etc. from a micro (store) level to a macro (corporate) level. As a result, things that need to be changed are changed.
What would make this very inviting is that changes need to happen and only through a unified voice can those changes be made. However, on the negative side (and one very important reason I dislike unions) is that once a union has entered a company it refuses to leave. When the needs that brought about its existence are not longer an issue, the union refuses to give up it’s presence or the acquired power.
The reason I share this is that I think “this place” needs a union. I don’t believe that the employees are appropriately represented or recognized and I believe that the micro solutions to problems don’t solve the macro issues that exist across the country. As a result, the negative outcomes of a union are outweighed by the positive benefits of bringing it in. The problem, though, is that “this place” indoctrinates its employees (from day one) that unions are unethical and immoral and are counter to corporate policy.
The outcome is that most people working for “this place” only hear and understand the propaganda the company wants them to know and don’t have the time or resources or education necessary to see where the problems and fallacies exist and they are not given enough information to make a decision that runs counter to what “this place” wants them to understand.
*I am not serious about this, merely tossing about another theory.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
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Into the Breech
Posted by smokingpen in Personal Entries, philosophy, work on March 13, 2009
Today marks the second day at the retail chain I will call “that place.”
It was an interesting day. For starters, I learned that working without being paid is illegal and could potentially result In termination. Taking gifts is bad. Personal prejudice is wrong. And a whole bunch of other things. To say the very least (and I mean the VERY least) I can’t imagine a less productive day.
“That place” requires all employees to go through computer based training. The outcome of which was my getting through about 75% of all the materials while a cohort didn’t get through the minimum required in the same amount of time. Not everyone is equal, I get that, but still, we’re not taking math or science or mechanics here.
Anyway, I am trying to reset expectations for lowest common denominator rather than skilled or talented.
Day One
Posted by smokingpen in work on March 12, 2009
Well, today marks the first day of a new job. That’s a good thing. The problem is not the job as much as it is the company. I got to listen to a rather protracted video on unions. One would think me pro-conversation in a clearly anti-union place, but I’m this context I am very pro-union. I think they DO serve a purpose – just not in the majority of places where they have the strongest hold. In places where they are needed you got nothing. The outcome, places like my new job.
There is, literally nothing wrong with the corporate stance. And yet, I think the company is wrong just as I think almost every politician is also wrong (I’ve got some thoughts I should share one of these days). Still, this is a job and one for which I am grateful.
John versus . . .
Posted by smokingpen in driving life, opinion on March 11, 2009
Yesterday was, at best, a pretty stressful day for me. I ended up driving with my brother-in-law to Upper State New York to pick up a bunch of his stuff. We were betting it wasn’t going to be there, but at some point between when it was decided we could/should go and actually heading out, b-i-l got a call from the guy he was supposed to be living with and found out that his stuff was where he left it.
The drive started at something like 6:00 a.m., which meant I had to be awake around 5 a.m. The 5 a.m. wake-up call is not uncommon as Erin and I have Camper and he is pretty regular in his sleeping/waking cycles. He is also pretty regular in wanting to eat every three hours, though the last couple of nights he’s gone for longer periods in between eating. This morning, when I got up with him at 2-ish a.m. he cuddled into me and then fell back to sleep. I went back to bed and a few hours later he was awake and Erin was feeding him. Then I woke up, per our usual cycle, and took him downstairs, fed him, and watched a couple of the shows we recorded over the past few nights – which is always cool. I like TV.
However, Tuesday morning had me and b-i-l leaving the house a little after 6 a.m. and driving the five hours (one way) to get his stuff. Fortunately, the drive was pretty uninteresting and there wasn’t much traffic. I liked it. We made a couple of stops, mostly for gas. When we got there we went upstairs (the apartment was on the second floor of an old house) and quickly gathered b-i-l’s things, wrapped the mattress set in a large blue tarp, and then strapped everything down in the back of the truck and headed back to Massachusetts.
Approximately 10 and a half (or eleven) hours later we pulled back into the driveway and unloaded everything on this end of the drive – right where we started.
What I realize is that I don’t really enjoy nor handle the 10 hour days of driving. The kick in the pants is that between driving semis and visiting my parents, long round trip drives used to be a part of my life. Now, though, I don’t like it a whole lot.
When we finally got home and everything was set, Camper was in bed, I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Erin suggested I go to bed, or get ready for bed, and before I knew it I was asleep and waking up to take care of Camper and then asleep again until almost 8 a.m. Point being, I don’t think long drives with preceding nights of little sleep are really my thing anymore. Yes, I lament the loss of real road trip buddies and wish I could do that; while at the same time wondering, “Why would I want to?”
Regardless, it was an enjoyable trip and I think everything went just the way it was supposed to. Even though b-i-l‘s idea of a road trip (as he described it briefly) isn’t even remotely like my idea of a roadtrip. Nuff said.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
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