Official News, New TVs, and Bad Movies

Job Stuff

I got the official notice yesterday afternoon. My job here will end with my contract on February 11, 2008. They are eliminating my position. It’s worse than expected however, as the number of people they are eliminating has grown. The boss was actually crying last night after a conference call which made a final decision to eliminate her (virtual) assistant. And people in the regional offices are already being let go.

I have to say that I’m happy about this. I’ve always liked change and this change is going to be much better for me than staying on for what I would see as another wasted year. (Ok, this wasn’t a wasted year. I learned a lot, improved my Spanish, and gained some valuable experience. But to continue for another year in this same position? That would be a waste.)

My next move is still up in the air. I have 3 possibilities on the horizon but nothing has become clear as of yet. I still have a hovering visa issue (marriage visa grants right to stay, not right to work, and getting the right to work is an arduous process) and that is complicating things. Let’s hope for the most favorable outcome, no matter what that means.

At any rate, I’ve had nothing to do in the office for about 2 or 3 weeks now and that looks to continue. Yesterday I made photocopies for about 10 minutes. I’m trying not to overly tax myself. Of course, the good part about that is that I’ve made great strides with my book and while I don’t think I’m going to hit my end of the year target, I’ll come extremely close. (I had hoped to have a complete first draft by Jan 1, 2008, but I’ve developed several plot lines over the past couple weeks and reorganized a few things which will necessitate a bit more time.)

New TV

We finally got the new TV the other day. The wife’s company gave a new TV to every employee as a reward for exceeding a sales target for the year. Apparently that kind of stuff really works because they didn’t just exceed the target, they destroyed it. For 2008, they’re talking about a free trip as the reward although that’s subject to change.

At any rate, we were rolling with a very nice Samsung 32 inch LCD HD TV. I was quite pleased with that one when we bought it and have never had a complaint about it.

It’s been moved aside, in favor of…

…a 40 inch, Sony Bravia, LCD HD TV, that is, without a doubt, the bombsh*t. I think we have the S-series although I don’t remember at this moment. It was like information overload when I set it up last night. And I think I may have had a high-tech orgasm just taking it out of the box.

The only downside is that the cable signal here is so poor that the picture quality on a great number of channels appears worse with this TV than the old one (primarily because it’s bigger). That being said, I really can’t wait until the day that I have HD set up at home on this TV. I’m already drooling about the prospect of HD basketball and picture in picture and everything else.

Crappiest movie seen since the last crappy movie

I watched the majority of Eragon on HBO last night (apparently it was a fantasy novel first). Let me just suggest the following to any would be watcher of this film: It would be a better use of your time to repeatedly bash your head into a wall for 2 hours than watch even 1 minute of this utterly craptacular disaster of a movie. Even the sudden and odd appearance of an all time great (John Malkovich who apparently wanted an all expense paid vacation in Slovakia around shooting time) can’t save the film.

Essentially, best I can tell, this movie is a mix of King Arthur and the Highlander with some Lord of the Rings and Star Wars thrown in, if it can be said to have any plot at all. But I’m fairly sure that the producers said, “screw the plot, let’s just get some super scenery, bone up on special effects, and roll! That’s what they did with the Lord of the Rings, right?!” (When the screenplay is written by the guy who wrote Jurassic Park III, you’re probably not starting off right.)

Now, I’ve never been one for dragons. Always thought people overly interested in dragons were a bit odd really. Fantasy stories are interesting because of the human experience and dragons based stories always seem to remove or deemphasize the human element. But the problems go far beyond that. When writing a fantasy novel or movie, names are a big deal. I really like the way Tolkien and Jordan, among others, introduced different names. They had characters from relatively out of the way places go out into the bigger world and learn about all these different places first hand. In that way, the audience wasn’t overwhelmed by a barrage of strange sounding names that made no sense and were impossible to follow. They learned with the character.

Now, I can’t speak to the novel version of this movie (although the reviews were not particularly positive). I haven’t read it and likely never will (dragons not being my thing and all, cheap rip offs of Tolkien and Star Wars notwithstanding). But I can say that this movie made no attempt to involve the audience and instead just overwhelmed them with a barrage of obscure and strange sounding names and concepts. It was all very much a turnoff.

Really though, aside from the horrid acting, a poorly crafted script, and a chop-shop editing job, the dumbest thing about it was that the entire movie took place over two days leading to one of the final lines of the film, “Yesterday you were a farmer, today a hero, tomorrow…”. Yeah, I’m supposed to believe that the entire magical world in which they live is the size of Virginia Beach, that a stupid ass farm boy can learn how to fight (et. al.) in one day, etc. (Ok, I missed the start, so maybe it wasn’t over 2 days and I’m being too literal. I don’t know. But the bottom line is, I don’t give a f***.)

But don’t take my word for it. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 16% favorable rating (too high) and the 10th worst film of 2006 (still too high).

Waterworld, say hello to your new brethren!

Decidedly Good News and a Super Bowl Pick

Sometimes in life, you find opportunities and sometimes opportunities find you. I was fairly convinced after not hearing from the company I interviewed with in November for almost a month, that they weren't going to complete the process to legalize my work status. I had called several times, was never able to talk with the my contact there, and figured that was that. So I took the job at Javeriana and started looking for other opportunities.

Well, Thursday, they called. The process is finished, they said. And they asked me to come in on Friday. So I went in on Friday, we worked out the details for the visa and I spoke with my now future boss (again) and he said not to worry about Javeriana, that we'll work something out between the two of us. They asked me to come in on Monday to pick up the package I have to take to the Ministry of External Relations and, assuming all goes well, I'll have my visa on Tuesday. The next step of the process is for them to resend my documents to the US embassy, negotiate salary, and receive final approval. That process should take between 7-10 working days. Which means, that within two weeks, I should be starting my new job.

I owe all of this to the new HR manager that they hired in the beginning of January. Not only does she speak near perfect English, she obviously knows how to get things done. She explained that normally it takes 2 months to get the documents from the government, but that she has a friend on the inside, so it took like 2 weeks. This is about 22-44 weeks different from what the old HR person had told my future boss. So bully for her.

At any rate, as I've learned here in Colombia, I'm definitely not counting my chickens until they hatch. I won't feel like this job is mine until I have a work contract, with a salary, and a start date in hand. Things can and do go wrong here all the time and since it's already been almost 3 months since my interview, I'm not basing my hopes on the timetable I laid out above. But, I do feel pretty good about this since it's with a major company in my field, the work should be very important for Colombia, and I'm going to be able to improve my Spanish in a mixed office. Should be a great learning experience, if nothing else.

Of course, my life looks to be very complicated for the next 4 months as I'll be splitting time between Javeriana and ARD, but I trust that my future boss and I will work out a solution. I realized when talking with him in person, that he just doesn't do very well in English over the phone. In person, he was very apologetic and when I offered to talk with my boss at Javeriana about getting someone to take one or two of my classes, he adamantly said no, that we would work something out, since he had given me the OK to take that job for the short term. At any rate, I'm still going to design another course for Javeriana as well as I want to continue with my academic development and the University is planning on having one of the IR courses at night so that more students can take it. So that's a good thing.

.......

Ok, now to the Super Bowl. I've thought long and hard about this and I've really tried to be objective. But when it comes down to it, I just can't go with the Colts. I have the following reasons:

1. My conscious just couldn't take it. Against the Patriots (arrogant winners of 3 recent Super Bowls), I could root for the Colts. But against the Bears? I don't think so. The Bears are too lovable and really don't have anyone not to root for. Even Tank Johnson (aka Mr. Firearm) is worth pulling for, even if it is just to see if he pulls a sidearm out of his shorts and shoots Manning in the back. My point is, the Bears are just so much more interesting than the Colts. And, I hate rooting for Manning. I want to root for the Manning face. (Plus, my very good friend in Chicago would never forgive me if I rooted against his Bears.)

2. The weather. One reason I waited to make a prediction is because I wanted to see what the playing conditions were going to look like. It makes a huge difference to a team like the Colts, but for the Bears, not so much. And, today, Miami is expecting wind and rain. That's good for the Bears, bad for the Colts.

3. Everyone, and I mean everyone, thinks this will be a walkover win for the Colts. That means that I should immediately call Vegas and put money down on the Bears. Because one thing that I know to be true, professional predictions of Super Bowl victors are almost universally wrong (See Bucs, Tampa Bay vs. Raiders, Oakland).

4. I don't trust the Colts Defense. This story has been spun masterfully by ESPN's Sports Guy and I won't go into too much detail here. But, the bottom line is, the Colts D didn't get miraculously better in the last month. They were smart and played two one-dimensional teams and gave up 30+ to the only team that had a balanced offense. One thing the Bears do is mix the run with the pass quite well and I think the Colts give up a lot of points in this one.

5. Last, but not least, defense wins Championships and the Bears got the D to do the job. I expect Urlacher and Briggs to be all over the field, dominating the Colts TE, which will be the difference. Take away the middle of the field and I don't expect the Colts to move the ball with the authority that they're used to. And if they can't move the football and drives stall, then Manning has to take more risks. That's a bad idea against a very opportunistic Bears defense that can, and I think will, score points in this game.

Bring on the Manning Face.

Bears 30 - Colts 22