Blog Notes
I published a record number of 548 posts in 2020, up by nearly 80 posts over previous record 469 in 2019. I can't promise to keep up that pace; even 1 post a day takes effort, and to some extent this was an unusual year where I didn't take a vacation and had more time for blogging because of COVID-19 shutdown activities.
Readership is mixed; a large plurality of daily miscellany posts still don't attract double-digit pageviews. The last 3 months I've attracted reportedly 2000-3000 page views, although Google reports only a couple of dozen or visitors to the website. I will promote some essay posts on my Twitter feed, but I don't really any appreciable traffic from Twitter. Of course, I still don't even have a dozen followers on this newer account.
I haven't updated my blog design, webpages, and blogroll in some time and will do so as time permits. I know at one point after a Twitter suspension, I had started a new Twitter-like feed blog of abridged messages; I haven't published in it for a while. I may resurrect or repurpose it. But I need to update the pages.
Shutdown Diary
There's not much to report on here. It's not surprising that COVID-19 might take on seasonal aspects here, as people stay more indoors during cold weather, so you have the double whammy of people more exposed to concentrated bioaerosols and more vulnerable immune systems (e.g., Vitamin D and sunlight).
There is no doubt that official counts are understated. My oldest niece's husband works in an IT services company in Florida, and apparently his company was hit with a comprehensive outbreak. My niece reportedly felt ill around the same timeframe but was not tested because she was deemed a "nonessential worker". She was told to consider herself infected. On a better note, she seems to be recovering.
I've been told I will likely be eligible for a Moderna vaccine shot via work connections, but I have no idea of the timetable. I would not be eligible for the first phase which would cover, e.g., local healthcare workers.
The Logic of Holiday Movies
Creative writing is one of my hobbies; I often quibble over certain plots in holiday movies. Over nearly 5000 posts, it's possible I've written on this topic before, but I don't recall discussing it. at length.
Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the classic films or cable movies I'll discuss.
I don't think I ever saw "It's a Wonderful Life" until my mid-20's. I heard about it from a male co-worker. I was working for a timesharing company. R had been one of those who had worked his way in IT through the mail room, not degreed, like the lousy, jealous first IT manager I had at a well-known insurance company. The company had introduced a product called CASHFAST, which it had marketed to prominent real estate developers in the Houston area. (In the years that followed, I did a writeup on the product for Dr. Zinkhan's marketing management MBA course (yes "the" infamous murder-suicide Zinkhan later at the University of Georgia). Zinkhan once stopped me, later as a PhD student, in the hallway to say my CASHFAST project had been picked first among some 20-odd projects by some prominent guy; Zinkhan hastily added that he had thought so, too.)
R had basically work on the initial product for a client, and our employer had decided to develop the concept into an independent product. The problem was that R had normally worked solo, not used to working in a team structure; he had a love-hate relationship with the product. He was being overwhelmed with change requests and hadn't really documented anything, but wanted complete control over his baby. The company wasn't comfortable with the product being dependent on R, and I was tasked with basically debriefing R. It was a thankless task, like pulling teeth. They had shut us into a conference room; I had to deal with his paranoia and defensiveness, and we geek types aren't blessed with great interpersonal skills; when I was finally making some progress, his wife J, fairly recently married and a co-worker, would call into the room, say to discuss dinner plans. (Probably the most interesting fact about J was she was a coxswain with Olympic ambitions. She herself was tiny, petite, not one of those muscular 6-foot rowers on a rowing team.) It was exasperating for me; R was basically useless after the interruption, and it was back to square one. I would complain to my boss about the interruptions, and many bosses don't handle the situation well. I remember both R and J gave me the silent treatment for about 3 weeks after that.
So R, in one of his more social moments, raved about his favorite, sentimental movie, "It's a Wonderful Life". I made a mental note to look for it next holiday season. He would later confess, "Ron, would you believe I was a virgin when I got married?" It took self-control not to laugh in his face. Dude, it's almost a cliché that we geeks have issues attracting the ladies! I even think there was a reality TV series called "Beauty and the Geek".
So basically the story of "It's a Wonderful Life" is about George Bailey, an aspiring engineer who ends up reluctantly taking over his father's savings and loan and at odds with Henry Potter, a Scrooge-like miser unhappy with the fact that the S&L is cutting into his tenant base, offering affordable financing for new homes. Bailey's Uncle Billy, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is going to the bank to deposit $8K; the day's newspaper mentions how George's younger brother Harry, a WWII hero, has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He sees Potter on the way, points out his nephew's front page appearance in Potter's newspaper, accidentally wrapping the newspaper around the deposit and hands it back to Potter. Billy heads into the bank to make the deposit--and can't remember what happened to the money.
This sets the stage for the whole movie's theme; George can't cover the lost $8000 and becomes suicidal over the prospective financial scandal, including a possible prison sentence. It's up to his guardian angel Clarence to show George that he's made a difference, the world's a better place because of him. And in the end, George's friends and neighbors cover the deficit.
Still, I have an issue with the Henry Potter character who seems to be the social Darwinism evil capitalist incarnation with no redeeming value, unlike Dickens' Scrooge. There's even a scene where Potter tries to seduce George into working for him, not unlike how the devil tries to persuade Christ with worldly power.
Yet the one unresolved plot threat that annoys me is that Potter got away with stealing the $8K deposit. Billy never remembers meeting Potter on the way to the bank. Some might argue: well, Billy gave the money to Potter on his own accord; Potter didn't rob him at gunpoint. You don't see Potter, who wanted George arrested over the scandal, paying a price for the theft. You want to see karma, for Potter to get his due. The writers at SNL had the same idea; their resolution has other issues, but it is funny.
