Bryce Moore's Blog, page 166

Island Adventures

Got back from a weekend away at Spruce Head Island. I’ve plugged VRBO before in the past, but I’ll do it again now. (Unsolicited. I get no money from this or anything.) We used it again to find a place to stay for this trip, settling on a house on Spruce Head Island. We stayed for 3 nights for a total of $486 (including all taxes, cleaning fees, etc.), and it was pretty much perfect. Sure, you can stay in a hotel, with all five of you crammed into a room, or stay at a Residence Inn or something like that where you can get a suite, but this was cheaper than that, and it comes with all the comforts of home.

If any of you are wondering, here’s the house we stayed at: https://www.vrbo.com/151113ha

The adventures included:

A trip to the Owls Head Transportation Museum, which went over really well with Tomas and the other kids. Loads of antique cars and planes to check out, and very interesting to be able to get nice and close to all of them and see how things have changed over the years.
A trip to the Farnsworth Museum, where they have a lovely exhibit all about the Wyeths. DC is our resident artist, but Tomas put in his review as well. (“I’d give it a 4/10. Not nearly as good as the museums in Paris.” So I guess I’m winning at raising cultured children?)
Staying up Friday night to watch the Draconid meteor shower, even though there wasn’t much in the way of meteors. We did see a very nice one that streaked across the sky for 3 seconds or so, though, so that was very nice.
Watched BYU beat Michigan State on Saturday, which was a lovely surprise.
A book signing in Augusta, where the nice weather did its best to keep pretty much anyone from showing up in a bookstore at 11am. But I had a nice visit with the store manager, and we’re looking at me coming back in December for a signing in the prime holiday shopping season.
Eating out at the Owl’s Head General Store, which Food Network said had the best burger in Maine a few years back. I tried the burger. It was, indeed, delish.
Watching the debate on Sunday night, because nothing says “vacation atmosphere” like watching senior citizens squabble for 90 minutes.
A stop by Moody’s Diner on the way home for some whoopie pies, followed by a stop at Fielder’s Choice Ice Cream in Augusta for a game of tag with the kids. (The family that plays tag together doesn’t drive each other bonkers in the car together.)
Driving through some of the prettiest foliage I’ve seen in the last few years, it seemed like to me. We did have rain Sunday, but other than that the days were crisp autumn perfection.
A trip to the Marshall Point Lighthouse, where they filmed some of Forrest Gump.

Really a great getaway, and something I’d love to do more of in the future. (Any trip that doesn’t involve a looooong car ride or a plane ride has my vote right there.) So if any of you are looking for ideas, I’m happy to pass this one along to you.

Second Clinton/Trump Debate Thoughts

I’m on vacation, folks, so this is going to be shorter than it could have been. Then again, I’m not really sure if there’s much more to be said in terms of convincing anyone of anything. I watched the debate last night from start to finish. I was really interested ahead of time to see how the latest Trump scandal would be handled by both sides, and if Trump would have improved as a debater in the last two weeks. (Hey. You never know.)

Anyway. I have a number of thoughts. Let’s see if I can get some of them down.

Undecided voters. Seriously? Where do they find these people? Do they live right next to the unbiased jurors who never read the news so they can be impartial during serial murder trials? I suppose they must be wavering because they’re either not listening to anyone about anything, or they’re listening to both sides lob accusations at the other, and they believe both.
Decided voters. On the flip side, I think the vast majority of decided voters have made up their minds and aren’t going to change them based on any debate. Here’s the logic: either they’re voting for Clinton because they’re a staunch Democrat or because they hate Trump. I don’t see a scenario where Trump persuades these people to change their minds. On the other hand, maybe they’ve decided to vote for Trump. In that case, after everything he’s done and said, I think he’d have to do something like eviscerate a live puppy in the middle of a debate to maybe move that needle a little. And since I’m fairly confident the little debate prep he does must include “don’t torture live furry animals where people can see you,” he’s probably safe there.
Trump the Attack Dog. This was playground politics at its most fundamental. If your opponent says something of substance, distract everyone by attacking her character. Or if that’s not readily available, attack her husband. Or if that’s not valid, go after her friends by name. Or don’t even name them. Just leave it generic. And don’t forget to blame her for everything that’s ever gone wrong in the United States of Hillary Clinton, because why else would they have named the country after her? Just think about the ungodly amount of power this woman has held over the last 30 odd years.


She was First Lady for 8 years! First Ladies are oh so powerful. They set policy. They negotiate treaties. They . . . wait a minute, no. They don’t. Or is the Obama so many people have been complaining about actually Michelle Obama? Maybe I’m the one confused. Anyway.
After that, she was a junior senator from New York. That’s like the most important job anywhere. We all know how much the world cares what Kirsten Gillibrand (her successor in that role) thinks about everything. World leaders line up to get her advice about . . . wait a minute. Nope. Sorry. I was wrong again. Junior senators don’t have much power.
Secretary of State. Bingo! Now we’ve got something we can really use. Because they’re the ones with the real power in our system of government. Think of how the world has trembled and history has been changed by them. We all know their names. We’re taught them in high school. Walter Q. Gresham. Harrison F. Matthews. Alexander Haig! Oh. Wait. No, sorry. Wrong again. They influence things somewhat, but let’s not overstate the case.


Bottom line for me on this is every time Trump blames Clinton for all the woes of the world in the past 30 years, I roll my eyes a little harder.
Some people keep trying to equate the sins of Hillary with the sins of Donald. It just doesn’t fly. Trump actively does and says awful things on an almost daily basis. I have written so many posts about how terrible he is, I have no desire to go over all of them again. Pointing out that the other person has some mistakes too doesn’t cancel those out. If one person has 1,000 flaws, and his defense is to point out that his opponent has 100 . . .
At this point, I feel like everyone saying “Trump had a much better night” need to check themselves. Ask yourself this: how in the world could he have had a worse night? His entire party is jumping ship. He’s not just put his foot in his mouth. He shoved it up to his kneecap. Again, he didn’t torture a live puppy, and that’s the sort of performance he’d have to have had to do worse. But let’s think of the idiotic things he did last night:


Threatened to jail Clinton after the election. (Because he realizes right now that the only way he’s keeping the support he has is by doubling down on the “We hate Clinton” themes.)
Admitted to paying no federal income tax for 18 years.
Denied he ever groped or assaulted a woman. (I give this a week before the line of women come out accusing him of just the opposite.)
Admitted he and his running mate haven’t figured out what they think about Syria just yet.
Called Clinton “the Devil”
Implied American Muslims are harboring terrorists and terrorist actions.
Implied all African Americans live in the inner city.
Claimed Clinton was the one with hate in her heart and spouting terrible things.


Let’s face it. We all know who Trump’s debate coach is now. It all lines up perfectly. I’m amazed we didn’t see it before. (Although in this case, it’s almost like Trump took inspiration from both sides of this scene . . .)

And with that, I’m back on vacation. Catch ya tomorrow!

 

Book Review: True Grit

True Grit by Charles Portis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I grew up only knowing of True Grit from the John Wayne western. Didn’t have a clue it was based on a book until the Coen Bros remade the movie a few years ago. I really loved their version (being a pretty big Coen Bros fan to begin with), and I was particularly interested to hear how much they liked the novel. I filed that away, thinking I might give it a chance sooner or later.

Having just finished it last night, it’s officially become one of my favorite books. I loved it from beginning to end, and I would recommend it to just about anyone out there.

What’s so great about it? First and foremost, the narrator. It’s told from the point of view of Mattie, the young girl who goes looking for someone to help bring her father’s murderer to justice. But it’s an elderly Mattie actually telling the tale. She’s looking back at events much earlier in her life, and she can’t resist inserting little lectures and sermons now and then to try and convince her audience of the errors of their ways. It’s a very straightforward, no-nonsense kind of a voice, and it’s amazingly consistent. Even better, it’s able to pull off some great humor by contrasting what’s being described and the way it’s described. There’s a scene in the Coen Bros movie where Mattie is negotiating with a horse dealer. I loved it in the film, thinking the Coens had inserted some of their quirky flair into the movie.

It’s all lifted straight from the book, folks. The Coens didn’t have to insert anything.

So the dialogue is great and the voice is one of the best I’ve ever read (seriously). Beyond that, the plot is simple, straightforward, and still unexpected. It drives the book forward from one adventure to the next. The climax is edge of your seat exciting, and yet still the voice continues in that no-nonsense fashion. Nothing’s over-hyped. Everything’s said with a straight face.

Speaking as someone who’d like to think he can write some interesting voices, I was blown away by Mattie. I wish I could ever write a character like that. The book is worth it for her alone, but there’s so much else there to be found. It’s a fast read, and it’s 100% worth every minute.

Check it out.

View all my reviews

Book Signing in Augusta

One of the things I’ve loved so far about having THE MEMORY THIEF get published has been how many friends have sent me pictures of the book in stores. They’ve come in from Maine to Pennsylvania to Arizona to Utah and more, and it’s been great. VODNIK never hit Barnes & Noble, and better yet, with MEMORY THIEF, all the copies have been prominently placed and easy to find.

Some of you have been asking how sales are going, and I have a simple answer for that: I have absolutely no idea. Well, that’s not entirely true. I suppose I could be tallying each copy that a friend has bought as they’ve told me they bought it, but that isn’t exactly going to give me a complete picture. With VODNIK, I had access to Amazon’s version of Nielsen’s BookScan numbers that would keep me updated week by week.

I had assumed I’d have the same thing this time around, but it proved to be a bit more complicated. Barnes & Noble’s edition is exclusive to them, and it appears that’s an entirely separate edition: it even has its own ISBN number. Amazon only lets authors see BookScan numbers of books that are available on Amazon, and since this particular edition isn’t available . . . I’ve got nothing. (Though it does look like some of you have been picking up copies of VODNIK, which is lovely too.)

Others have asked if I’d be doing a big signing or celebration or anything local, and I want to. But there’s only the one Barnes & Noble in the state, see. And I didn’t want to bring B&N to my town when there’s a lovely independent bookstore right here that I try to support. (You’re awesome, Devaney Doak & Garrett!) So I think we’ll wait until March to do a real signing in my hometown.

However.

That doesn’t mean I’m not doing a signing in Augusta at the Barnes & Noble! There was a bit of uncertainty for a bit over the exact date, but that’s all ironed out now (it was on my end, not theirs), and I’m very happy to let you know I’ll be there THIS SATURDAY at 11am to sign copies of THE MEMORY THIEF.

Now, a disclaimer. It’s for an “Educators Reception,” so I don’t know 100% what that means. Does it mean only educators get to come? I have no idea. So if you live a ways away, you might want to call the store first and check to be sure. If it does end up being just for educators, I’ll be talking to the folks there while I’m there to see if I can’t set something else up. And it’s not like I can’t sign books in the parking lot or something after the events over. I’ve got my own pen!

Anyway. If you can come out, it would be lovely to see you. And a mega thank you again to everyone who’s been so supportive. Don’t forget how awesome you all are!

The Big Short: Tons Better than The Revenant

Not to keep beating a dead bear, but my other option to blog about today is the vice presidential debate, and I don’t feel like going there. (Okay. I lied. I do. But my review of that would be pretty simple: it felt like a game of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. You know, the one where each player controls a little mechanical robot and they flail away at each other until both robots have crumbled to pieces? Hillary had one robot and Trump had another, and the robots’ job was to go in there and take hits for the team and get as many blows in of their own as they could. This election is anything but a chess match.)

Where was I?

Ah yes: The Big Short. What a strange, interesting beast of a movie. It tells the real life story of the few people in the country who actually realized there was going to be a huge financial meltdown in 2007 due to the housing crisis. They proceeded to short the housing market, and made a ton of money off it.

On the one hand, this is terrible, right? They were making money off the misery of the rest of the country. Why didn’t they stop it instead of just trying to profit off it? But the movie does a great job reminding us exactly why they didn’t try to stop it.

Everyone else in the country thought they were crazy.

They might as well have been the long haired, unwashed, stereotypical end-of-days crazy man standing on a street corner for all people were paying attention to them. The banks couldn’t believe how lucky they were that some idiots were willing to pay millions of dollars to make such a stupid bet. It was like someone betting on purple in Roulette. The rest of the world was so convinced, and of course that’s when things are most dangerous.

And somehow, this movie is a dark comedy that manages to also instruct the viewer on the intricacies of financial shenanigans, all while being really captivating. (Having Margot Robbie explain some of it from a bubble bath did tend to help in that arena.)

It’s R-rated, and it didn’t have to be (though don’t get me wrong: it deserved that rating. I’m just saying it could have done a PG-13 version very easily), but I recommend the movie to anyone who’s still looking back at the Great Recession and wondering how in the world it all went south. If you want to get very angry at bankers and Wall Street types, watch this movie.

Well acted throughout. Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling. Directed by Adam McKay, who wins the award for most unexpectedly good director, going from the likes of Anchorman and Talladega Nights to . . . this? Totally didn’t see that coming. It won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, and it’s a better movie than The Revenant in pretty much every category except “Plotless Westerns Featuring Bear Attacks.”

Seriously. You could spend your time watching DiCaprio wheeze and moan for a couple of hours, or you could learn a ton and be entertained at the same time. Open your eyes, sheeple!

5/5

The Revenant was Wildly Overrated

Still sick, and what better way to pass the time than to watch Leonardo DiCaprio have it much much much worse off than me? I’ve been so busy the last while that I haven’t been able to really watch much of anything, and I’ve corrected that over the past few days. I was excited to see The Revenant. It had gotten so many awards and nominations, it had to be great, right?

Wrong.

DiCaprio won a Best Actor award for this performance? I’m sorry. I just don’t see it. Yes, he went though a grueling experience to film the movie. From what I’ve read, the whole thing was absolutely miserable, with setback after setback. But this wasn’t some big risk they were all taking. They were making a film, and they chose to make it in a really hard way.

Congratulations?

So if I decide to get my library work done barefoot and up to my waist in a freezing cesspool of filth while being pummeled by professional wrestlers and required to keep singing the entire lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody backwards in French for three hours, does that mean I magically get the award for Librarian of the Year?

I might wish it does, but the fact would be that the end result would be the same as doing my job the normal way. I just chose to make things much, much harder on myself in the process.

Don’t get me wrong: this is a very well-filmed movie. The cinematography is spot on. It’s impressive that they used almost no visual effects. But I would argue that you could take just about any actor, throw this amount of money on the screen, and ask them to grunt and groan in agony for 2.5 hours, and you’d end up with about the same performance. There’s no interaction with people. (Sure, there’s interaction with a bear, but . . . how much acting skill does it really take to scream in agony for a while, then be unconscious, feverish, and completely out of it.)

Some of this might just be chalked up to the fact that the plot is so thin you’ve basically seen the movie as soon as you’ve seen a trailer or even an ad for the film. Man. Bear. Winter. Revenge. The end. It’s seriously like someone tried to come up with 1,000 ways to torture DiCaprio, and they thought filming it all would be great.

It’s not a bad movie. It’s just not worthy of all the accolades it got. Not even half of them.  3/5 Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

Mountains, Molehills, and Trump Taxes

I’m pretty well established when it comes to my feelings of Donald Trump. (They’re about as negative as they can get.) So if there was something Drumpf did or said that made him look like an idiot, I’d be all for shouting it from the rooftops. (And I suppose I’ll note that he seems to feel the same way, judging by how often he decides to shout out stupid things to as wide an audience as possible.)

But this tax return leak? There’s no “there” there, folks. No matter how much we might wish there were enough to sink Trump, wishing doesn’t make it so.

Trump didn’t do anything illegal. He used tax laws to his advantage. It would have been quite surprising if he’d done anything differently. How many people out there when they’re doing their taxes pause in the middle or at the end, look at how much they’re paying, and try to find ways to pay more?

Maybe I’m just not altruistic enough, but when I’m using TurboTax or whatever each year, my goal is to see me get as big of a refund (or as small of a tax payment) as possible. If I somehow managed to find a trick that made that refund go up by a few grand, would I take it?

You betcha. Assuming it was legal. That money could pay for my second bathroom, yo.

Of course, people with as much money as Trump can afford something a bit better than TurboTax. They can hire fancypants accountants who know the tax code inside and out, and use that ninja-level knowledge to pay even less in taxes. And one can certainly argue that isn’t fair, just as one could argue that having the money to pay for lobbyists to ensure there are those loopholes to begin with is also not fair.

But there’s a big gap between “not fair” and “illegal” or “scandal.”

The Trump tax leak highlights a few things. First, it shows he’s had at least one incredibly off year as a businessman. Losing almost a billion is less than good. He could argue that he did better the other years. (An argument that would be more valid if he, you know, actually released his tax returns.) But where’s the assurance he wouldn’t have an off year or four if he got the keys to the White House? For a man running on his business acumen, admitting he lost that much could be damaging.

The tax leaks certainly highlight the fact that our tax laws are too complicated, in my opinion. Wouldn’t it be easier to have something straightforward and understandable? Less open to shenanigans by certain parties, at least? But complaining about the rules of the tax game when you’re in the middle of a round doesn’t mean a whole lot. If we want to fix those rules, we have to wait for the round to end at least.

But the real question to me is what does this leak do to the election? Who does it persuade to change their minds?

Trump supporters seem fully entrenched at this point. I don’t think there’s anything that could come up that would change their minds. Even something really damaging would be spun as the “mass media” spreading lies about their candidate.
Clinton supporters/Trump haters (not necessarily the same people, but they share a common goal at this point) are likewise entrenched. This might make them more angry and hate the man even more, but does that really change anything?
Undecideds are the real category that matters. And I don’t see these tax returns doing much to them. If they’ve sat on the fence this long, how does this change their mind? Trump used legal tricks to pay less in taxes. A real scandal would be if Trump had lied on his tax returns. Or if he made a whole lot less money than he claimed. (Losing a whole ton of money in one particular year isn’t, alas, enough to prove a pattern.)

Then again, if there’s anything Trump has taught me so far, it’s that there’s a difference between reality and the truth. The truth doesn’t always create reality. Sometimes you can drown out the truth by just shouting louder. So perhaps by just yelling over and over “THIS TAX LEAK IS A MAJOR SCANDAL AND CHANGES EVERYTHING” it actually will change everything. As long as that “everything” means Trump isn’t elected, I’ll be a happy man.

Here’s hoping, I suppose . . .

No Time!

I’d love to write a full blog post today, but I can’t. Off to Bangor for a library meeting and, because I wrote a blog post all about how great I feel all the time, the Gods of Sickness decided to smite me for my pride. I’ve got the sniffles. Life is hard. And so I’ll leave you with my traditional clip when I’m feeling like this.

Have a nice weekend everybody.

Windows 10 and Me

I consider myself to be a pretty “with it” person when it comes to technology. For my entire life, I’ve been able to sit down with a computer or anything that plugs into a wall and figure out how it works. PCs, Macs, VCRs. Whatever. I’m the sort of person who usually doesn’t even bother with the instruction manual, because why.

A few years ago, I made the jump from PC to Apple, and I’ve been very happy with that jump. I like my Apple products, and I like how easily they all communicate with each other. It’s a sweet little ecosystem they have going, and I’ve got no complaints.

But in the time since I switched, Microsoft has made some . . . interesting decisions. Updates to its operating system such that any time I try to sit down in front of a PC these days, I feel like somebody stuffed my hands into oven mitts. I have no idea how to do what I want to do, and I resort to just clicking random things in hopes that something will at some point take me to a screen I recognize. It’s the feeling you get when you’re in the same town, but you’re coming at it from a different direction. One you’ve never used before, and you just keep cruising around hoping you find a landmark, because why in the world would you need a map?

So I’m faced with a quandary: is this it? Have I reached the point at which technology outpaces me, and the next thing I know I’ll be complaining about not understanding how to set the clock on the microwave?

I’m hopeful that it’s not me, it’s Microsoft. I talk to other technologically fluent people, and they struggle with Windows 10 as well. It does random things in random ways. (And why does it do them? WHY?) I also believe that if I sat down with a Windows machine now and actually used it for an hour or two, I’d be good to go. The main problem is that I keep getting asked to troubleshoot something on a PC because people know I know my way around a keyboard, and then when I try to help, I’m in uncharted territory.

No real solution here. Just a general complaint that Windows should stop screwing around with its OS just for kicks.

Which makes me really sound like I’m heading toward a blinking 12:00 on my microwave any day now . . .

New Bedroom at Last!

Guys. GUYS! Last night, I slept in my new bedroom. That might sound like a simple little something, but when you think back on everything that went into getting that place finished and ready for Denisa and me to finally move in, it’s kind of astonishing (and more than a little depressing, I guess.) Think about it.

First we had to build a staircase to the area above the garage. It was a staircase to nowhere, essentially. The area above my garage was completely dark. No windows. It had a moldy old rug for a floor, though that only covered part of the space. When we first moved ino over 9 years ago, you could see daylight through the roof. (Come to think of it, the journey to this bedroom began even further back, when we repaired some of the foundation of that garage to make it sturdy, and we switched out the soffits that were almost totally rotting off. Or even before then, the first construction project we paid for on the house: putting new shingles on that roof.)

Anyway. The staircase was over 5 years ago, and it was really just an act of faith more than anything else. A hope that we might someday finish things. We got the staircase up, and then we had to reinforce the floor, which was too weak to support real construction. Then it was framing things out for a bedroom and a bathroom and a loft, and after that it was putting in dormers so that we had windows up there.

That was followed by putting in lights and insulating the whole thing, which of course led to us having to rip the insulation down this year and have it all spray foamed. And now we had the walls put up and painted, and the floor put down, and, and, and–

We finally were able to sleep there. We moved the bed up last night.

Is the space finished? Nope. We have a hall and a bedroom done. In mid-October we’ll be having the rest of the walls put up, fill in the hole where the old staircase used to be, and tile a corner for a pellet stove to live. Then we need to buy said pellet stove, finish off the loft, and tackle the bathroom.

But for today, I’m just enjoying the feeling of actually having a new space in my house. It was strange sleeping there last night. You wouldn’t think adding a new room to the house would make that much of a difference, but it really does. More storage, more floor space, more space to spread out. It’s lovely.