Random Stuff

Another busy weekend - Sunday was my niece's 3rd birthday party, so we were down in Temecula for most of the weekend. We did get home today in time for me to mow the lawn though, so I wasn't completely unproductive around the house.

I was driving back from Temecula this afternoon and everybody else in the car was asleep. I have always said that I like to drive - but I have discovered that at least part of the Joy of Driving comes from listening to good Driving Tunes. It is fairly boring driving in a completely silent car.

Anyway, with all that time for my mind to drift, I got to thinking about my Mom's job as a church organist. (Don't even ask about how I got there.) I decided that the risk-reward curve for church organists is very similar to that for engineers - if you do a good (or even great) job, well, heck, that's what we're paying you for, right? But if you miss a note, or accidentally lean on a key reaching for some dropped sheet music during the service - what a hack! You stink! Combine that with the job's hours - Wednesday nights (choir rehearsal night the world over) and Sunday mornings (All morning. Both services.) and it's no wonder there aren't people beating down the doors to get those jobs.

I was also trying to come up with a description of just how much sound one person can make with a big pipe organ. It's not really fair to compare an organ to a single instrument, but it's pretty impressive nonetheless how much oomph a good-sized pipe organ can deliver - and it's under the control of one person. There are those who believe that classical music is mostly quiet and boring - but they aren't considering the total sonic overload possible when a big pipe organ really gets opened up. (If you're curious, ask me and I'll provide some specific examples.)

From the Did you know? department: The phrase "pull out all the stops" is from the world of pipe organs - each "stop" is a different instrument voice. When you pull out all the stops on an organ, you are "turning on" everything that organ has. So that's pretty much as loud as it can go.

Next!

I got my copy of Better Off Dead on DVD in the mail this weekend, so I forced Katy to sit and watch it with me tonight. (Well, ok, she sat next to me on the couch and read her book while I watched it.) It's always been one of my favorite dumb movies and I'm pleased to have a copy on DVD. It is, however, an extremely feature-poor DVD. The "special features" amount to being able to turn captioning on and off. The scene selection is well-done, however, and it's easy to quickly jump to, say, all the "I want my two dollars!" scenes, or all the scenes where people are asking Lane if they can date his ex-girlfriend - two running jokes in the film.

I think that if you were trying to make this movie today it would probably get a rewrite. Lane Myer, the protagonist, starts out to kill himself four times in the film - hanging, jumping off a bridge, asphyxiation, and dousing himself in flammable liquids. He talks himself out of it, or something happens to distract him, every time. Are the scenes funny? Well, yes, I think so. Uh-oh, here comes a left turn...

I think I just talked myself out of that argument. I was about to say that political correctness (and fear of litigation) would keep that sort of thing off the Silver Screen. But Hollywood is an exceptionally crass place. The film would get made as-is, especially if it could be done cheaply and was projected to turn a decent profit.