End of June

I hope Old Dog puts his cyber problems behind me, so that we can begin discussing movies and other stuff.

After reading that sentence a few times the first part still doesn't make a lick of sense to me.  Why would I put my cyber problems behind Uncle Ken?  Anyhow, the major problem has been resolved and traced back to an update of Google Earth Pro, some nonsense about a missing DLL file.  I'm wary about fiddling with those files and entering into the terminal mode, a lot can go wrong.  After a little uninstalling and cold starts I was able to load an older version of Earth Pro and now all is well, near as I can tell.

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It's been years since I watched Sling Blade and I recall liking it, perhaps not as much as some others.  As I was looking for a streaming site to watch it for free I found
Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade, the 25 minute short film, in black and white, that the longer film was based on.  I found the longer film and the first 15 or 20 minutes is an exact copy of the short, at which point I quite watching it.  The original was so lean and strong that I thought watching an expanded version would be a pointless waste of time.  Maybe I'm wrong but it's not an important issue to me.

A lot of movies have been like that to me lately.  I'll start watching them and after a little while I'll lose interest and find myself not caring about what I'm watching.  At least I'm not wasting a lot of dough  for the privilege of being bored and the popcorn at home is a lot cheaper, too.

One of the reasons I enjoyed Da 5 Bloods so much is that I knew black guys in the army exactly like those guys in the film.  The army is a great equalizer, throwing men from different kinds of backgrounds into the big green melting pot.  Groups and sub-groups are formed, sometimes along racial lines but not always.  More often than not I'd be hanging out with guys from a big city like Detroit, Philly, New York, and of course, Chicago; LA or San Francisco not so much.  And that meant being in the company of non-white personnel, race wasn't much of an issue most of the time in my experience.  I'd be drinking rum with the Puerto Ricans or listening to the Temptations with Da Bloods, it was all good.  Remember that elaborate handshake in the movie called The Dap?  I used to know how to do that but the version on Okinawa was a little different; I don't think they teach that to just any old white guy but now I'm bragging a little.  And why not?  It's nice to be included in new and different social groups, and respect is a two-way street.  Most of the time.

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I don't like the way the nation is skewed geographically.

And?  We all gotta be someplace.  Here are some interesting maps for your viewing pleasure.  Please take note of #16 and compare Chicago and Beaglesonia.

Speaking of Beaglesonia, has the yeast shortage ended?