Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Google as a dictionary I have a fairly large vocabulary, although I have a pronunciation problem dating back to growing up in New Jersey ('joisey). My freshman english teacher was able to identify those of from New Jersey and New York just by how we wrote (and the first two words of many sentences are verbally run into one if I'm not paying attention). I've gotten better, but it's still there. I also have a significant spelling problem (toss in a little dyslexia and writing can be fun; editing is embarrassing). I occasionally mangle the heck out of a word when I say it, which makes it impossible to spell. The word for today is prerogative which I always mangle as perogative. Checking google, we find this. When the electronic dictionaries offer no clues about a word you think you know, check the search engines. 11:56:27 PM

The things we remember Duck and Cover is pretty darned funny. The soundtrack certainly sounds like the nonsense from the fifites and early sixties they pushed into my classroom. The depiction in the flash is another story altogether. [Kris Amico] Somehow, this craziness reminded me of the best thing anyone ever showed us in elementary school. If a teacher showed it today, they'd be dismissed and hit with lawsuits by outraged parents (which is a part of why our schools are so screwed up). The film was called "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce. Given when I saw it (somewhere around 1968 or so), it had to be this version. I only saw it once, but I can still remember what the black and white images of that short film looked like. Knowing how I paided attention in class at that age (not at all, I was playing with the math problems at the end of book most likely), we might even have talked about the story itself. I was reminded of this short a couple years ago after seeing "The Sixth Sense". That did not happen with another twisted ending Bruce Willis film, "Twelve Monkeys". In part, I don't think you can really find a comfortable place to be with "Twelve Monkeys" so the end isn't as jarring. Or, at the end, you're still trying to work out what happened 40 minutes into the movie and the end doesn't make sense until a half hour after the movie ends (or until you see it again). According to the user comments on IMDB, there is a version done by Alfred Hitchcock, but I saw the version which is almost entirely silent, so you settle down into it until they rip your heart out in the end. Finally, it seems an indy group has done a new version, in color. Not my cup of tea, but I would love to find the original on DVD. 12:59:30 AM

© Copyright 2002 Dave Ely.