Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Ultimate

I will not complain about my proposal being failed just to get my attention, I will not. I certainly need to fix it even though it is better than most of the ones that I read and got some useless feedback about how it was better than the reviewers’.


Alright, but I do need to complain, you know, righteous indignation and all of that. This week I received a credit card promotion from my own bank. Probably because I still have a cash-back card and they are tired of giving me barely a penny on a dollar. They want to transition me to a card that is “better.” Great, but that is only a small grievance, the real sticker is the copy text at the top of the promotion: “Use your Bank-name-here credit card to help pay down debt.”


Um, no. A credit card is not used to pay down debt. A credit card is used to accumulate debt.


Let’s get biblical for a second, debt or assurance of debt is a chain around your neck that can be yanked by the person that is owed. Go check out Financial Peace University. Although we don’t ascribe to the entire system described by FPU it is certainly closer to what we practice than not. Just average credit card debt is a bit disturbing. Maybe we should look at getting rid of it. With only a house to pay for at the moment it is sort of silly to have a monthly accumulation as well. Unfortunately for the simplicity of not racking up debt to be paid off monthly debit cards are not as well protected as credit cards, hmmm…


I started and finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline so here’s a review. Overall: Not a terrible story, but talk about IP nightmare for the upcoming movie. I am a geek, nerd, whatever, but the level of 80s pop-culture was way beyond my ability to cope, even recognizing 60-80% of it. But here is where it is ultimate:


The disconnectedness from the real world was certainly surreal, but then was conveniently forgotten at the end. There are so many points in the story where it could be an interesting delve into futurism or even keeping self-consistent and then it just throws in an 80s reference or several pages of exposition and then brings us back to the moment reeling. Some moments stand out in my mind, but maybe because they are so few. On top of that all the victories are essentially hollow, there is existential crisis throughout, but it doesn’t seem to affect any performance on challenges.


Would I suggest you read it? Was it a waste of time? Meh on both counts. If you are a super fan of the 80s then this book was written for you, but it wasn’t even a waste for me because I can see what not to do in my writing.

How about that Black Panther movie? It was pretty good, I wouldn’t jump straight to the best in the Marvel universe, but only because it is really hard to compare all of them side-by-side. That said, it did talk about some issues that translucent-skinned individuals like me don’t often think about. Well done, well told, worth seeing.

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