The Dark End of the Street

My house is perched on the eastern edge of a riverbluff, with expansive and breathtaking eastward views over the Eel River and to the Coast Range beyond.

To the north I have a hedge, which was about 15 feet tall before my landlord trimmed it last month. At its new height of about 8 feet, I can see into the adjacent sheep pasture (now occupied by geese) and to the main house beyond. I can also see the river course for some miles in this direction, enabled by my large picture window.

On the west, my view is mostly of the rest of the bluff, the lower third of which is the main sheep pasture (this one occupied by sheep). The bluff rises up to its maximum height, perhaps another 100 or 150 feet, fairly steeply, which means my sunsets come backwards: when the sun sinks beyond the bluff, which is by 4pm this time of year, it's still sunny in the river valley to my east.

But the main problem is to the south, where there is a copse rising from the edge of the bluff to a maximum height of about 30 feet. It's lovely in the summer, and I guess it's still lovely, but it's only about 20 feet from my house, and that means that, for the past month or so, the arc of the sun has not risen above the treeline when seen from my house. That means that my house, or at least the portion of my house inhabited by humans rather than bats, receives no direct sunlight for a little less than half the year. This perpetual darkness means that my house can get very cold, even when it's not very cold outside.

My only source of heat is my wood-burning stove. If I stoke the fire at bedtime high enough to last the night, which I'm not sure is possible, it makes the house as hot as a Turkish bath. If I do not do this, and the fire dies in the wee hours of the morning, the house cools off so rapidly and thoroughly that it stays refrigerator-like all the next day. The third way is to keep the fire at a house-warming low level all night, but generally I sleep too deeply to wake up every two or three hours to add a log to the embers.

I guess the fourth way is to learn to enjoy the darkness and chill, and wait paitently for the sun's return in March.

Arlo & Janis skewers the NFL

Today's Arlo & Janis strip perfectly illustrates the two reasons I've lost all interest in the NFL:

Click on the 'toon to see a larger (i.e. readable) image at Comics.com.

Cricket Saves My Computer

At 6:30 this morning, the fairly strong winds of an approaching storm blew some branches into a powerline across the street (in the sheep pasture), causing first the fuses and then the transformer to blow. We were without power for nine hours as tree-trimming and transformer-replacing crews toiled in the rain. When power was restored, and I reset a tripped breaker, I discovered that my microwave oven had been, well, nuked by the power surge. The microwave is the only electrical item of any significance that was not plugged into a surge protector; it was plugged directly into the wall outlet. (I'm not completely stupid, but I am lazy: I had a surge protector for that outlet, but when I moved my refrigerator out of the kitchen and into the pantry, where there are no grounded outlets, I realized I had to string two surge-protecting power strips together for the 'fridge to reach a grounded outlet. One of those strips came from the kitchen counter, and all good intentions to replace it were quickly forgotten.) So now I need a new microwave; no big deal, as this one was getting pretty old and may not have lasted much longer.

However, it soon occurred to me that the microwave was not the only appliance in harm's way. On almost any other night, my laptop would also have been plugged directly into the wall (and being a Wednesday night, it'd've been left on to run some utility programs overnight.) I blanch to think what my mental state would be if this very expensive laptop which is essential in so many different ways had been converted into a smoking doorstop. But good fortune, a very infrequent visitor in this house, was in my pocket last night, and it's all because of cricket.

You see, I've fallen in love with cricket, and have slavishly watched every moment of the recent 5-match ODI series between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. The final match, played today in Chittagong, which was last night California-time (and which was won by Bangladesh in thrilling fashion), was telecast beginning at 6:30pm yesterday. (If you are wondering, I can watch such things on the web via the site ESPN360.com, the only good thing ever to come from the Worldwide Leader.) Zimbabwe, batting first, survived their entire allotment of 50 overs, which meant that their half of the innings lasted until something like 11pm my time. Not wanting to miss Bangladesh's turn at the strike, I took the computer to bed with me--where the available outlet is a surge-protected one. When the match ended, at about 3am, I considered returning the laptop to its usual place, but opted to just leave it on the dresser, still plugged into the power strip (because it was still running, as noted above.)

Had it not been for that fifth match of the Grameenphone Cup, my laptop would be a smoldering piece of toast right now, and so would my psyche. Cricket is my new favorite sport.

Pictured: Bangladesh allrounder Shakib al Hasan, source http://www.deshiweb.com/cricket/shakib-takes-top-spot-among-odi-allrounders/

Menu Management for Morons

I bought a quart of milk today, to replace the one that passed its exipry date about 7 weeks ago. Since this milk is fresh, I want to make mashed potatoes for dinner. I also have leftover peas in the fridge that need to be eaten. So which leftover entree should I have, the beef or the pork? Easy. Alliterative alimentation requires that I have Pork with my Peas and Potatoes. The beef will just have to wait for another day, one on which I feel like making Brown rice and steaming Broccoli.

But wait...crisis...the beef is leftover Pot roast...

Maybe I should just go out for Pizza and Pepsi with a chaser of Pepto-bismol.

We Need National Single-Payer Health Care!

Okay, so this is trivial in the grand scheme of things. But I got a replacement credit card today, and my health insurance is auto-paid on this credit card, so I need to update that payment information to put in the new expiration date. You'd think this would be easy, since after all I'm trying to give them money for which they've done nothing. But no. They have a website, but there's no place to access payment information, there's no FAQs on the subject, there's no way to contact customer service online, and it gives no phone numbers or email addresses. I have an insurance card, and it has about a half-dozen phone numbers, but none of them are relevant to my problem (at least, not on the face), and I just know that if I get on the phone I'm never getting off again.

If the insurance company can't even provide an easy way to do this simple task, how can I expect them to help me out when I really need help?

This is why I have never used this insurance--I'm paying for nothing, really. I'm terrified that even a simple visit to a doctor for a hello-how-are-you checkup will put me into such a hell of claims processing that my stress level will go through the roof, necessitating a visit to the psychiatrist or cardiologist or (probably) both. I maintain this insurance solely for catastrophic (to my bank account) occurrences.

So I'm just not going to update this expiration date. If they need it, they know where to find me. God forbid an insurance company go unpaid, even for a day, so I'm sure they'll find me.

If we just had health care provided by our government, like all civilized countries, this wouldn't be stressing me out. Call it single-payer, call it "public option," call it socialism if you want to, but just get it done!

Stupid Sports Clichés, Vol. 63,905

After Idaho scores on a long pass play to go ahead of Hawai'i 14-7 early in the game:
"Get your safety belts on--this one's gonna be a shootout!"
I guess that's a drive-by shootout?

Cathartic Columbus Day

Happy End (해피엔드), dir. Jung Ji-woo (정지우), 1999.

It can't be just dumb luck that this would be the film I chose to watch on Columbus Day of all days. (For the uninitiated, today would have been my 18th wedding anniversary. Columbus Day is far and away my least favorite day of the year.) I don't want to give too much away about this film, lest any of you should decide to see it (highly recommended); suffice to say it was a cathartic experience for me. And I now have an answer to the oft-posed question "who would you choose to play you in a movie?"

Choi Min-shik plays Min-gi, a down-on-his-luck banker. He's recently out of work, and is doing a fairly lousy job of coping, spending hours reading (but not buying) romance novels at a fabulous used bookstore, or sitting like a dead thing in front of his TV set, watching cheap soap operas or football matches. His wife Bora, played by the fabulous Jeon Do-yeon, has a successful career (it's not clear, but she may have only returned to the professional ranks as a result of Min-gi's unemployment) and looks at her husband with a mixture of disgust and regret. Their only interaction seems to consist of her nagging him about his housekeeping, about his motivation, about his hobbies. Oh, and by the way she's having a torrid affair with her former boyfriend, who just so happens to be her employee.

I mean, really, stop me if you've heard any of this before, mm'kay? There are two major differences between this couple and my own marriage, though: they have a little baby (although it is far from clear who the father of the baby actually is), and Jeon Do-yeon is hot, hot, hot.

Min-gi is a perfectionist, cutting up empty milk cartons for recycling and recording mileage on the family car in an ever-present notebook. This is purported to be the banker in him coming out, although it seems closer to OCD. This close observation of the mundane in his mundane life provides him with several clues towards his wife's infidelity. At first he just back-catalogs these signs; if my own experience is of any relevance, it is because he genuinely doesn't want to know where that road might lead. But before long, the mounting evidence can no longer be ignored.

Here, about halfway through, is where the movie stops being about me, and starts being about the me I so wish I could have been.

Min-gi never directly confronts Bora about what he suspects (at least, not yet), but rather than continuing to stumble over clues, he starts to investigate. And although Bora admonishes her lover for not being careful about hiding their liaison, she's the one who makes the key mistakes (no pun intended), and Min-gi's investigation is quick, easy, and thorough. Still Min-gi takes no action, until one evening when Bora is forced to choose between her lover and her baby, and makes the wrong choice. This pushes Min-gi to the point of action. I can't tell you what that action is without spoiling the film, and I'm not sure I can even hint at it. Suffice to say that it's lifted straight out of many fantasies I have had over the past five years. I'm glad I saw this at home on DVD, because had it been in a theatre, my loud and sustained cheering might easily have been misinterpreted.

And that is, of course, where this stops being a film review and starts being a personal response. If I were coldly, objectively reviewing this movie, which frankly I think I would be unable to do, I might object to the resolution as being misogynist even for a misogynistic society like Korea. (Jung does, however, go to great lengths to both masculinize and demonize the character of Bora, for what it's worth; she's not just a cheatin' wife.) While objectively I can't condone the actions of Min-gi the Korean banker, subjectively I cheer on--lustily--the actions of Min-gi the Fiddlesticks doppelganger.

Jeon is wonderful in her role, as she is every time out of the box. Although she is appreciated in a smallish circle of cinephiles (she has been honored with a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival), Jeon is a great star who deserves to be much more well-known worldwide than she is. I imagine I could stop people in downtown Eureka all day and night and ask them who Jeon Do-yeon is without getting one correct answer, and that's a shame, especially since they'd all know who Paris Hilton is.

But despite Jeon's great (and oh-by-the-way frequently unclothed) performance, this is Choi Min-shik's film right from his first appearance in the bookstore. Choi was a well-known as a tough guy at the time of this film's release (he had played the ultimate North Korean bad guy in Shiri earlier that year), and this performance is very much against his type, both from his earlier work and his physical presence. Consistent with his character's moods, he rarely speaks, but still clearly conveys everything Min-gi is thinking and feeling through his performance. He is simply outstanding. Fans worldwide who only know this great actor through his subsequent star-making performance in Park Chan-wook's Oldboy (2003) might not believe that this is the same actor.

I've had this on my shelf for over a week now, and delayed watching it for one reason or another, until deciding this afternoon that this is the night. I had no idea how appropriate it would be. I anticipate that this will be my regular Columbus Day movie from now on. And tonight, I'll have happy dreams.