The plot is that a black man and a white woman fall in love and want to get married, and their families have to deal with their attitudes about interracial marriage.

Through most of the movie, the main problem anyone has is the black/white thing.

More importantly though, everyone in favor of the marriage acts like the only reason anyone could not give their blessing would be because they were racist, or romantically dead inside.

However there were several major, big-time problems with the proposed marriage:

1. They only met 10 days ago. 10 days on vacation in Hawaii, a whirlwind romance, and they now want to get married. Not only that, they want to get married in another week’s time.

2. They arrive in San Francisco and tell her family. They have one day to get to know their future son-in-law, John, then he will fly to Geneva, and their daughter, Joanna, will leave a week later to get married, in Geneva.

3. Joanna believes her parents will have no problem with the marriage, but indicates she’s going to do it regardless of what they say.

4. John, however, privately tells her parents, without her knowledge, that he doesn’t want any problems in his life so that if they don’t give them a full blessing with no reservations, he won’t marry her.

5. John is 37, she is 23. He is 14 years older than her. He has been married before and had a son; they were both killed in a car crash.

6. They later decide that Joanna will fly with him to Geneva that night, instead of waiting a week.

7. John’s father expresses his disapproval and John responds with a speech which includes this: “You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it’s got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead weight of you be off our backs!”

Now, I don’t care that they are an interracial couple. Actually I kinda like to see interracial couples, just because the contrasting skin tones make for a nice aesthetic.

So from a 2009, not-raised-to-care-about-race perspective, the racial issue was a complete non-issue.

Putting myself in the father’s place, I would have zero problem with my daughter marrying a person of another race. I wouldn’t even have the initial shock/surprise that everyone seemed to have.

However, I would totally have objected to the marriage!

It’s ridiculous to make a lifelong commitment after 10 days. There’s just no reason to. What’s the rush? Seriously, why does it have to go so quick? And to only get to meet the guy for a few hours… I could never give my blessing for my daughter to marry a man I’d only met for a such a short time.

Then there’s the fact of the age difference. I’m 8 years older than my wife and while dating it didn’t seem to matter but it actually does, sometimes. Not necessarily a lot, and not necessarily enough to be against a marriage, but it could be relevant, and 14 years is likely to be even more relevant.

Of special concern is the fact that John is giving an ultimatum to the parents that Joanna doesn’t even know about! And they know she doesn’t know… that he’s doing this behind her back, saying he’ll not marry her if they don’t approve because he doesn’t want that problem in his life… to me that would indicate he didn’t love her that much or was too selfish to be worth marrying. I’d definitely object on that ground if no other.

I was horrified at the way John talked to his father. Obviously Joanna’s parents weren’t there for that. Sure, John’s father had racial problems, but have some patience, he’d only know for about an HOUR that his son was marrying a white girl. And even if he didn’t have any problems with white people, he had a point that it was going to be a big deal to a lot of people. At that time, it was illegal in several states (though thankfully overturned by the Loving case before the movie actually hit theatres).

Give the man some time to adjust. If he’s a good man, he’ll come around and give his blessing, but it’d ridiculous to expect that in an hour or two. Again, the rush of the marriage (for no good reason from the pov of the parents) ends up putting completely unnecessary pressure on the parents.

(By the way, after John’s horrifically disrespectful speech to his father, his father never utters a single word for the remainder of the film.)

It’s also pretty selfish to get married in another country when you know your parents would really like to have a nice wedding and such that they are other friends/relatives could attend, without a pretty good reason. A wedding ceremony is a part of the community. They did at least belatedly invite the parents to fly to Geneva for the wedding.

The worst part of the film for me was that all these completely valid reasons to object to the wedding were either not addressed at all or only given lip service, and those in favor of the marriage had nothing but pity or contempt for those who weren’t, painting them as bigots or being against love or something.

At the end, Spencer Tracy’s character Matt gives a big speech which ends with approving of the marriage. We, the audience, are obviously supposed to have been on the side of the “young” lovers all along and therefore to be happy about this.

To me, it just seemed sad that Matt was so bullied by everyone and distracted by irrelevancies that he lost track of the many and major reasons to object.

I don’t care what the guy looks like, if my 23-year old daughter comes home from vacation for a few hours and informs me she’s leaving that night to fly to Geneva and marry a man she’s known for 10 days, I will object. I don’t care if he’s got the cure for cancer in his pocket, there is no reason to do it that quickly!

Unless you simply don’t care how other people feel. In which case, why are you even asking for a blessing in the first place?

Now, from a 2009 perspective it wouldn’t make sense to object on the grounds of race. How about in 1967? What if you, yourself, had no problem with a mixed-race marriage, but knew that 100 million people in the country did, and they’d face a lot of persecution for it? Might you object to spare them that?

For a “we’ve known each other 10 days” relationship, definitely. Joanna might have been raised not to care about race, but that’s easy when you’re in the majority race. We really have no idea how she’ll react when she and her husband go to a predominantly black location and she ends up on the receiving end of racism and hate.

She’s probably never experienced that and probably thinks it’s only an issue for John, not her. Or she might weather the persecution just fine, but the point is we don’t know, and there’s no way they do either, yet. Joanna displays remarkable naivete throughout the film so I have little doubt it’s never occurred to her.

If they both know the score, and know it’ll be an issue they have to deal with, and want to get married anyway because they love each so much, then fine. But they didn’t have time to have reached that level of thought.

Of course, “I don’t have a problem with race, I’m just worried about how you’ll be treated by other people” is frequently just code for actually having a problem with race. But it doesn’t have to be… I think, under certain circumstances in history, it’d be right to voice misgivings because of that.

When I was 17, I asked my dad what he’d think if I were to marry someone of another race. He said he wouldn’t care but he wouldn’t advise it because of society’s problem. But that wasn’t code, because even just a few years down the road society had changed, and when I was in a long-term-relationship with a girl from another race, he didn’t have any problem with it at all. I think I only caught flack from “society” once or twice in the form of some random guy on the street, and that was it.

At least in the social circles I move in, it’s a non-issue today. I was hoping this film would be a good exploration of 60’s racial issues, since I wasn’t around then. Instead, the racial issues were mentioned but not really discussed, and the myriad of reasons the marriage was a bad idea, at least at that time, were glossed over.

In all, I was very disappointed. It must go to show how deeply racial perceptions were at play in 1967 so that people were so focused on the racial issue that they didn’t pay attention to everything else.

And, it did have one of the all-time best film scenes ever, when Katherine Hepburn’s character fires her assistant for being a racist busybody that calls her daughter stupid:

“Now I have some instructions for you. I want you to go straight back to the gallery – Start your motor – When you get to the gallery tell Jennifer that she will be looking after things temporarily, she’s to give me a ring if there’s anything she can’t deal with herself. Then go into the office, and make out a check, for “cash,” for the sum of $5,000. Then carefully, but carefully Hilary, remove absolutely everything that might subsequently remind me that you had ever been there, including that yellow thing with the blue bulbs which you have such an affection for. Then take the check, for $5,000, which I feel you deserve, and get – permanently – lost. It’s not that I don’t want to know you – although I don’t – it’s just that I’m afraid we’re not really the sort of people that you can afford to be associated with.”

When remodeling the house, I tore out the bedroom down to the dirt under the house. I propped up the roof, and removed the floor and walls, fixed the foundation, and then rebuilt it all.

I insulated it well, and then put in a small gas furnace. Gas is cheaper than electricity, I reckoned, and it definitely needs a heat source, so with effort I ran a new gas line and hooked it all up.

The pilot light alone warms the room.

Usually too much. So the furnace is unused, and an electric oil-filled space heater heats the room. What a waste.

So when building my daughter’s nursery, I opted to put in an electric heater instead, since it has off mode that’s actually off…

I roughed in the can and ran 240v wiring to it, and 24v wiring from there to another wall where I wanted the thermostat to live.

Then all the finish work was done, the drywall and the painting, and it was time to install the heater itself.

And I discovered I’d installed a line voltage heater, which needs a line voltage thermostat. And instead I had a low voltage thermostat. 24 instead of 240. Only off by a factor of 10.

Worse than having the wrong thermostat is the fact that the wiring is already done and inside the walls and there is not 240 volt electrical cable leading from the thermostat to the heater.

I googled around for a solution, and found this transformer/relay (Model RC840T-240) to connect the two.

But at first I didn’t see how it would work. A light switch has the black “hot” supply wire come in, and another one leave and go to the light, right? And the switch determines if the current stops at the switch, or continues on to the light fixture.

Well I figured the relay would work the same way… two 120 volt supply wires, a black and a red, leave the circuit box and go to the relay, and then two 120 volt wires leave the relay and go to the heater. The thermostat is also hooked up to the relay and that is basically the switch. Right?

Except the wiring diagram showed the relay had three wires, a black, red, and blue. Just three. Not four. Shouldn’t it have a black/red pair for the incoming power and a blue/something pair for the outgoing power? The way it looked, one of the supply wires still went straight to the heater.

I was confused because the heater’s manual indicated that you should use 120 volt power with a 240 volt heater; that it wouldn’t run at full power that way.

So I figured if one 120 volt wire went straight to the heater, it would always be on, but at half power, right?

By the way I e-mailed these Aube people that make the relay, and they never answered. I also e-mailed the makers of the heater, but they said it would probably work but I sure really just buy a line voltage thermostat from them instead (ignoring that it would be a hardship to rewire the finished room) and didn’t answer my question about why the relay only had three wires.

Well, I finally figured out that a 240 volt heater needing two supply wires simply won’t work at all with only one. It doesn’t run at lower power. It doesn’t run at all. The warning against using 120 volt power on a 240 volt heater is probably for some yabo that would twist both heater wires together to avoid running two wires or something.

So the relay works great, and the wiring diagram makes perfect sense given my newfound knowledge. I had to break the wiring in the attic crawlspace (which I was going to have to do no matter what, since I made the initial mistake). I put in a nice box with the relay attached and was able to use all the wiring I had put in.

My daughter’s room has heat with a programmable thermostat! I wish I had had that, growing up.

Anyway, in case any other idiot out there doesn’t realize some of these things I learned the hard way, and googles for help, perhaps this page will come up.

However, the show is actually pretty cool. I don’t know much about shows like Teletubbies or Dora the Explorer, except to know that I hate them from what little I’ve seen.

But this show has some pretty awesome music sometimes. The hook is that five children (anthropomorphic animals/aliens) share a big backyard and have adventures in their imagination. They all play well together, taking turns being in charge (in one episode one will be a Butler, obeying the others, in another the Boss at a racetrack, giving out orders), and usually playing with cooperation instead of competition, but when they do compete it’s always good natured.

In the most recent episode I watched, “Who Goes There?” Tyrone is a security guard at a museum. In an homage/ripoff of the film Night at the Musuem, Pablo, Uniqua, and Austin are works of art that come to life.

The musical style of this episode is Flamenco, and it is wonderful. I’ve been listening to it when my daughter isn’t even in the room.

Here’s a youtube clip I found, and the lyrics transcription.

Snape is a bigot. He is prejudiced. If you like Snape, then you like a deeply, truly prejudiced person. He treated Harry like trash the minute he met him, because he looks like James, who Snape hated.

James was apparently a bully and a jerk. That’s fine, but that doesn’t somehow make Snape sympathetic, just because his rival is a scumbag. Harry isn’t a bully, so he isn’t like James. But Snape hates him from Day One.

He also treats Hermione, Ron, and Neville like trash and favors the kids from his own house. And no, that’s not all just an act as part of the Bigger Plan. Dumbledore even admits that these are Snape’s own personal hangups.

So Snape was originally fine for James to die, okay, I can accept that, even though if he really loved Lily he probably shouldn’t be okay with her husband’s death, since that would obviously hurt her, and if you love someone in a way that isn’t just selfish and possessive, you generally don’t want to hurt the one you love.

But he also didn’t care if Harry died, as long as Lily was spared. That’s pretty calloused. And then when Lily dies anyway, he does agree to help protect Harry. Not because it’s right, but because he wants (a) to do something for Lily and (b) revenge on Voldemort.

And finally, when Dumbledore tells him Harry must die, Snape is devastated, as he thought all his sacrifice was to protect him. Dumbledore asks if he has begun to care for Harry. “For him?” Snape exclaims. He doesn’t care about Harry. He never cared about Harry. Harry can suffer, Harry can hurt, that doesn’t bother him. All he cares about is Lily, but not her son, only because he’s a tool that through protecting him, he can feel good about doing something for Lily.

So then when he learns that he can’t protect Harry any more, that he is for the slaughter, he continues his secret work for reason (b), revenge on Voldemort.

So yeah, Snape is brave. You have to be to play both sides for so long like he did, to risk his life so many times… but is bravery enough? And I believe he did come around from his Death Eater ways, he eschewed the use of Mudblood in private (or was that merely because he had called Lily that and the word reminded him of his worst memory?) and he did try to save George from a Death Eater. When Dumbledore asked him how many people he’d seen die, he said “Lately, only those I could not save.” So sure, he retreated from his evil.

But does dialing back the evil make him good? The thing to remember is, if he’d lived, then once Harry knew the truth about his life, they’d still have been enemies. Snape hated Harry, because he reminded him of James, and that wouldn’t have changed. In his death, Harry found forgiveness to bestow, but if Snape was alive and well and sneering and insulting as ever, would he have?

Snape did what he did for his own purposes. His sick fascination with Lily drove his life. He was a loyal servant of Voldemort, if James and Harry had died but Lily had lived, wouldn’t he still be? If he could have turned Lily into a Death Eater, wouldn’t he have?

It’s like the broken message in Return of the Jedi: Darth Vader murdered so many people (including children), but when he saves the life of his own son, suddenly he’s redeemed? As if, unless you are 100% full-stop evil, you must be Good?

Yes, Snape was not as evil as he could have been, or as he had used to be, or as everyone thought. That doesn’t make him good. He was prejudiced, until the end of his days, and content in his prejudice. He was an awful teacher, abusive, and petty. He probably helped corrupt Draco Malfoy and gang; after all, he was their influence for so many years… was he honest about fostering their ambition for power, or was their corruption part of maintaining his status as a spy? Either way, it’s pretty horrible.

He should have moved on and tried to find someone else to love. His obsession with Lily was unhealthy.

And worst of all, for as obsessed with her as he was, why did he join the Death Eaters in the first place? That’s what drove her from him, not James. He did it. He chose power over her. But did he ever own up to that? He preferred to blame James for that, I guess.

How about the sorting? Harry chose Gryffindor, although the hat might have put him in Slytherin. Why didn’t Snape? He chose Slytherin over being with Lily… okay, that’s maybe not his fault. The whole Sorting concept is deeply flawed.

And on reflection, the wizarding world if full of horrible prejudices and irrationality, so perhaps Snape is not to be judged quite as harshly…

But he’s still not a good person. Brave, yes. Valuable and instrumental in Voldemort’s downfall? Yes. Protected Harry? Physically, anyway, though he had no problem with psychological tortures extraordinaire. But it takes more than that to make a good man. Snape remains a villain in my eyes. Dumbledore states that the world is made up of more than Good Guys and Death Eaters.

It’s true. Snape did good things, and bad things, but remains a bad person.

And it’s now in colour! And the current story is one of the most exciting and hilarious yet. I wish my friends all read this comic. They don’t. I hate them so much.

One thing I like about the comic is that the hero is competent. I am sick of fiction where the hero bumbles around or wins by luck because the villains are idiots. So many writers think that since conflict is necessary for a story, that the hero has to have things be really difficult for it to be good. Well, sometimes having a hero who is genuinely excellent beyond all reason at what he does is exciting, and it means the villains and obstacles have to be that much more impressive.

I mean, start with a terrific hero, a doctor that cures all sorts of diseases, can get past TSA with ease, that can tell his office is rigged to explode just by looking at the outside of the building, that can singlehandedly defeat an entire ship of pirates or Ronald McDonald. Then to be interesting, the villains have to be just that much more impressive, right?

Or take something dumb like Star Trek: First Contact. The good guys only win because the Borg are IDIOTS. Result? Lay-mizzle, for shizzle.

Anyway, Dr. McNinja is awesome.

My contact information has sat in their system since then, and now that they have rolled out a new product (mini Giant Microbes in a petri dish!), they let me know.

I don’t get paid to review stuff on this site (especially since no one reads this site) but these are pretty cute little toys or gifts or whatever they are. I won’t be buying any more because I have no where to put them, but they sure are cute.

I don’t mind when a company I do business with keeps my e-mail and sends me marketing stuff. As long as it’s in moderation. I don’t need an e-mail per week with new products and sales and junk. That gets irritating.

But awww, how cute the little microbes are. Maybe I’ll get one after all. I could pretend it was for my daughter. How about the one for Kissing Disease? Because my wife and I kiss the baby so often. She’s got such little cheeks. My wife says kisses are what makes babies grow. No wonder the baby is so fat.

Long story: My wife left her laptop on the floor and the screen got cracked. Might have been me that stepped on it or rocked the recliner on it. Doesn’t matter. Laptops don’t belong on the floor!

But, she never complained, never asked if we could afford a new laptop, because we couldn’t. Just made do with a screen with large black shards through the middle. Cute but crazy woman.

So for her birthday, which is also Christmas, I figure I’ll get her a new (read: used) laptop.

After exercising some google fu, I determine that what looks like the best deal for price, hardware, and reliable service is actually Amazon Marketplace. I’ve boughten tons of stuff there and never had a really bad experience.

So I order a laptop on 12/11. It is supposed to ship on 12/13. I have high hopes it will arrive before Christmas. It doesn’t. I don’t have a tracking number because, oddly, it was supposed to go through the US Mail.

On 12/24, after it hasn’t arrived, I e-mail carl@eastcoastlaptops.com asking if there is a tracking number, or an estimate on when it will arrive.

I get a response on 12/27 saying it will be shipped “no later than 12/27.” What?! It was supposed to be shipped 12/13. Not two weeks later! I am advised to e-mail back on 12/28 and ask for a tracking number. That’s my job to ask, you see.

While upset that it wasn’t shipped on time, things happen, it was the holidays. I politely reply on 12/28, in the morning, with “Please send me the tracking number.” No answer.

12/29 and 12/30 is the weekend. No answer. 12/31 is a workday. No answer. 1/1 is New Year’s Day. 1/2 is a workday. No answer. I resend my e-mail: “Please send me my tracking number. Second request. I am not happy with this transaction…”

No answer. Phone call. Voicemail. Please answer my e-mail.

On 1/3, I get a reply. On the seventh day. It says my item has been shipped and includes the UPS tracking number. Guess what? They only shipped it the day before!

In other words they ignored my e-mail for 7 days until they finally shipped it, nearly a full week after they promised, 3 weeks after it should have been shipped. Then they replied.

At this point I let them know I am not happy and request some kind of credit. Just something to show they messed up and aren’t trying to mess things up for me.

Because I had been played on the ship date twice. 12/13, then 12/27, finally 1/2. I was in the mood to forget the whole thing. Quite a bit too late for a Christmas present, you know? If they had told me on 1/2 it hadn’t shipped, I would have canceled. I suspect they suspected that and that’s why they didn’t reply. Maybe they figured once it was shipped I wouldn’t go through the hassle of canceling?

Well, they not only refused a credit, but tried to lay the blame on UPS for not picking the thing up until 1/2.

I let them know I’d refuse the package and wanted a refund. Amazingly enough, in 12 years of buying stuff online, this was the worst transaction I’ve had. I’ve had problems before, late shipments, wrong item, broken stuff, but the people I dealt with were decent enough that I was not just plain offended. Anyway, I let them know my displeasure.

You what they said back? “Although I definitely do not believe your statement about this being the most disappointing shopping experience since you have shopped online, you have had a negative attitude towards the situation your order has been in since the Holidays.”

Hah! I was nothing but polite and understanding until 1/2 when it had been days since I got a response. And after calling me a liar, they had the gall to spout some nonsense about how they hope I change my mind when I get the package.

Yeah, because I like to buy stuff from people that call me a liar and don’t care that they screwed me over!

By the way each e-mail response took a minimum of 1 full day to receive, except the last one. After I mouthed off at them back, I got a response within 2 hours, saying “since you will be returning our product I no longer have a need to speak with you since our real customers will need my assistance….”

So they can argue with me quickly, once the complaints and rudity begin, but they can’t ship stuff quickly, or at least e-mail me back quickly.

Idiots. If they had been smart enough to not wait six days to e-mail me, I might have put up with further delay. The delay is bad, but not communicating is unpardonable.

Anyway, the package came, and I refused it. My UPS driver is a pretty awesome guy. When heard my story, he was amazed. I’m pretty sure he’s too professional to intentionally kick the package around when returning it to the sender. But I can dream!

New order with Techno Intelligence, another Amazon Marketplace seller. Ordered 1/3, supposed to ship 1/9. Shipped 1/7 instead, tracking number sent via e-mail. Kudos.

Update: My replacement purchase from Techno Intelligence, instead of the dreadful eastcoastlaptops, arrived on 1/11, earlier than expected! 8 days from order to arrival! And it works fine, appears to be great condition. And my wife knows she is getting another present, knows of my struggles, but doesn’t know what it is. (Don’t worry, she doesn’t read this blog. Actually no one does.) So last she heard her mystery gift was arriving next week. Sweet!

Meanwhile eastcoastlaptops got another 1 out of 5 on Amazon, besides the one I gave them. I hope they change their way of doing business before they aren’t in business any more.

There’s theoretically a way to get a free one to try. You post about it on your blog and then e-mail gamewright.com about it, and they supposedly send one within 4 weeks.

We’ll see. Someone at slickdeals.net said they got it and it was real neat.

If I get one, I’ll definitely post a review. I’m all for getting bribed to review stuff, I got no problem with it. Only thing is, one, I’ll always say if I’m getting something out of it, and two, my opinions can’t be bought. If I say a thing is neat, by jorge, it’s neat. And if it’s a sorta meh, I’ll say that too.

Peter is disappointing. He went to Texas to save the cheerleader, when as far as he knew, he had no powers when he wasn’t around someone that did. And, he saw a future painting of his own death. But he went anyway.

Now he has the most powers of anyone, but he needs his big brother to help because he’s such a wuss.

When he faces Sylar, does he turn invisible? Does he use his own power of telekinesis? Does he stop time? Nope, he stands there.

When Niki finally is useful for the first time in the whole season, what happens? She wallops Sylar good, and all she has to do is hit him one more time, just one time and he’s dead. But Micah yells that DL needs her, and Peter, the dope, says “go ahead, I’ve got this.” What?!

In the time it took to say that, it could have been over. So then Peter still doesn’t use any powers, even the super-strength he should now have from Niki.

Hiro is finally useful, despite having the most powerful single power of all. He still doesn’t stop time (because then there would be no show) but at least he stabs Sylar. Does he then cut his head off? Nope.

Nathan flies in and takes Peter away before he goes Nova. Too bad nobody tried just knocking him out. Where is Niki? She had to leave the fight with Sylar so she could hold her husband’s neck!

I don’t know why anyone thinks Nathan is dead. He could easily have flown high, let go of Peter and flown to safety. Peter won’t die either from the nuclear thing, or from the fall.

The crowning stupidity of all: Bennett doesn’t make sure Sylar is dead. He’s attacked Bennett’s wife, said he planned on killing Claire, and Bennett’s prime motivation at this point is protecting his family. He killed his former boss and severed all ties with the company, so why wouldn’t he go pump some bullets into Sylar’s head?

So naturally, Sylar is still alive, although perhaps instead of crawling away under his own power, he could have been dragged into the manhole by the “even worse” person Molly is scared of. DUN DUN DUN!

Oh, and when Candace got knocked out and her illusions vanished, why did she still look like she always has? Previously she indicated that she was really huge. Bad continuity.

I guess I’ll watch next season, if I have any free time which I probably won’t, what with the baby on the way. But I lost real interest a long time ago.

It’s the same problem on Star Trek: they give the heroes all these abilities, but they are so powerful that there couldn’t be any conflict, so they have to nullify their abilities. But that’s very hard to do, and so they don’t do it well. If Hiro now has such fine teleportation control that he can pop in, pop across the room, grab Ando, pop to their office, etc, then he should be able to stop time and execute Sylar without any problem.

Ando is the real hero here, anyway. He has no powers, no chance of success, but he tries to stop Sylar anyway, to save millions of people.

Claire is just a teenager so I cut her some slack for not acting sensibly, but where is everyone else’s excuse?

Why didn’t Mohinder hit the guy with the gun instead of Parkman?

Boy, New York sure is empty at night, isn’t it?

Remember Claire’s friend? We sure never saw him again.

Peter seems to have forgotten all about Simone until now. Remember when she was an important part of the show?

Sylar isn’t the smartest guy. Why didn’t he kill Bennett? You’d think he would have.

At least they did give the show an ending of sorts. But it did seem pretty low-budget to me.