Budd's Alternate Reality

Stop Child Abuse-Log Off

Facebook or people on facebook, more likely, are in the midst of a campaign to change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood in order to raise awareness about child abuse. 

I am not a fan of awareness campaigns in general.  Mostly they are a waste of donated money.  I think they are mostly cop outs for people who feel guilty about them, but don’t really want to do anything about it.  I mean, look at the infamous pink ribbon campaign.  I am officially aware of breast cancer.  I don’t know if I am any more aware of it than before I ever saw a pink ribbon, but how can I not be aware of it.  I know the pink ribbon branded stuff donates money to breast cancer research, but a lot of that money gets thrown back into promoting the pink ribbon. 

A friend suggested donating to a child abuse prevention organization instead of changing your profile picture.  While donating money to stop breast cancer makes sense because medical breakthroughs cost money, donating money to stop child abuse is like donating money to stop drug use; it will mostly be PSAs.  I can see an abusive mom with an extension chord in her hands, arm drawn back to strike, when a PSA comes on with a sad looking child saying “stop the abuse.”  I then see this mom hitting the cowering child harder to prove that they can’t tell her what to do. 

Abusive parents, like other people that do morally deplorable things, generally don’t see themselves as bad or doing wrong.  They actually think they are doing the right thing or that the child deserves it.  It doesn’t make sense to me, but my mind isn’t warped.  Child abuse is cyclic, but is also more common in homes where there is drug and alcohol abuse.  So, where do you spend money to prevent this?

The only solution I have is to promote self awareness.  Don’t beat your own kids, and watch out for other kids you know.  I hated being grilled about my daughter’s broken thumb in the emergency room (she had wrecked her bike), but understood why they were doing it. Pay attention to the kids next door and don’t be afraid to ask questions.  There is verbal abuse that is just as harmful and you can hear that.  Neglect is also a form of abuse, so turn off farmville, log off of facebook and pay attention to your kid(s). 

Parenting styles may vary and people that are little more harsh on their children than you are may not constitute child abuse.  Be careful and have your facts straight before you call social services on someone.  I know someone falsely accused and his life was hell for a couple of years (they made him rearrange his furniture even). 

In closing, don’t beat your child, don’t verbally beat your child, and don’t neglect YOUR child.  Pay attention if you see something fishy, but don’t go out on a witch hunt for anyone that spanks their kids.  I think if you can stop spousal abuse, you will stop/find most cases of child abuse as well. I do donate $5 to Not-Me every time I do a martial arts meetup in order to help people that have been abused and teach them to prevent further abuse.  Donate all you want, but know what your money is actually paying for.  

Mad Chick Magnet

The girls on the train are always hitting on me. 

Today, when the train stopped suddenly, one fell into me. 

Sometimes a girl will sit beside me or stand in front of me. 

One girl sat across from me and pretended to read her book.  Can’t fool me. 

Another one was pretending to sleep.  Uh huh. 

One silly girl never looked at me.  Yeah, the lady dost protest too much. 

Hello ladies, can’t you see this ring? I am taken. 

Hollywood, Stop It!

I have come to the point in my life where I no longer want to see my favorite comic books or movies made into major Hollywood pictures.  I have been burnt too many times.  I think the problem is two fold. 

First, screenwriters are often given the daunting task of turning a 300 page plus novel into a 2 hour movie.  I am sorry, but there is no way that you can do that.  Maybe you should ask the original writer for a novella treatment on their work, instead of thinking you can rewrite it better.  You can’t, that is why the novel sold millions of copies and you are writing screenplays and no one has ever heard of you.  Maybe if they approached the project with a little humility or reverence.  I think for some adaptations they don’t even read said book but just ask someone who did what it was about and who the characters were.  I am serious. 

Secondly, directors feel the need to make everything bigger and brighter.  This causes movies to go over the top.  Big name actors are attached and their contracts say that certain things can’t or have to happen to their characters.  They also want to leave the ending open so that they can have a sequel, should the original adaptation become successful.  What you end up with is a larger than life depiction of everyday scenes that have been changed so that Tom Cruise doesn’t die and gets the girl, and then changed again so that there is a possibility of a sequel.  Oh crap we cast Johnny Depp as a secondary character and his contract requires this amount of screen time, so lets rewrite these scenes and put him in. 

These are two of the reasons why movies from film generally suck.  The occasional exception approaches the film from a place of great respect and humbleness, not to mention excitement.  Please, someone in Hollywood read this before another beloved book or character is forever marred by a crappy adaptation. 

Veteran’s Day

Today is Veteran’s Day.  Our military is voluntary, and a lot of people forget that.  The men and women that pledge their lives to the service of their country do it because they want to.  Some may do it for college, others for adventure, and still others because they don’t have any better options, but they all sign that line and take the oath of their own free will.  It is a beautiful thing.

While I was in I served with a great group of wildly diverse people.  My wife was asking about my friends from the Army, I told her that the guys in my platoon were more like family.  They really were, I lived with them, ate with them, worked with them, and took really weird camping trips that we called field problems with them.  I was with these guys for work and play day in and day out.  I never served in combat, but a lot of those I have served with did.  I don’t know of any that have died in combat, and I am thankful for that. 

Today, several restaurant chains are offering free food for our nations veterans.  But it sucks to eat alone.  So, I ask anyone that reads this.  Take a veteran to lunch or dinner today.  Check the link and take them to a place where they will eat free. take them somewhere else, or just invite them over for a home cooked meal.   It doesn’t matter as long as they know they are appreciated and are surrounded by friends.  If you read this late, Golden Corral is doing free food on Monday.  Also veterans appreciate appreciation any day of the year. 

From one veteran to all the others.  Thanks for your service. 

Yesterday, I went to lunch with a guy named Joe.  Joe served in Iraq and came back paralyzed from the waist down.  He went to Walter Reid where they told him he would probably never walk again.  Thankfully, he defied the odds and now has full use of his legs.  Joe is a great guy. I am glad that I had lunch with him and got to know him better. 

Oh No!

Looking back at a lot of my recent posts and it is apparent that this blog has become a daddy blog.  This was obviously not my intent and still isn’t.  I guess because I am a dad and it is a big part of my life (sometimes seems like the whole thing), it is just a natural change. 

Part of it may have to do with the focused niche writing I have been doing at my other sites.  Some of it has to do with vox closing.  How easy was it to just respond to the question of the day.  Some of my best work was snarky responses to those questions.  I realize that their is a place where I can go for these, but knowing that it is an individual working on them and not some corporate entity makes me not want to answer snarkily and I also have to go out and track the question down. 

I don’t mean to be a daddy blogger, but it just happens sometimes.  I try to post here at least once a week and I will make the conscious effort to make that two posts if one of them is a daddy blog. 

If you want to read about scifi- check out my SciFi Media Page  and if you want some martial arts stuff I write at Practical Black Belt.  I can’t promise all the posts at these places  will be daddy blog free, but a majority of them will be. 

Was this a daddy blog or do I owe you guys another post this week?

All Hallows Eve

I wasn’t expecting to dress up this year but boredom got the best of me.  You see, we were going to meet up with another family and go trick or treating.  I start getting the kids ready for a 6pm departure at about 4:30pm.  It doesn’t take that long to get them ready contrary to what every Sunday morning church departure has taught me.  At 5:30pm we make the call to see if the other family is ready and they tell us 6:30.

 

I had an hour surrounded by face paint and an imagination.  The easiest thing, I think, is a zombie.  15 minutes later, I am done with make up and bored again.  In my mind, I associate Black Lantern’s with zombies.  Not a huge leap and I wonder what the black lantern symbol is.  I check it out on google and my first thought is that I could draw that pretty easily.  So 20 minutes later I am standing there with a black lantern symbol on the chest of my black leather jacket. 

Of course no one knew that I was a black lantern.  I did get compliments on my face paint though.  One person asked what the symbol on my chest was but didn’t know what a black lantern was and probably didn’t know what a green lantern was either. 

"The blackest night falls from the skies,
The darkness grows, as all light dies,
We crave your hearts and your demise,
By my black hand— the dead shall rise!" –Black Lantern Creed

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Cover of Diary of a Wimpy Kid

I watched the Diary of a wimpy kid movie this weekend.  I have read a couple of the books and they are pretty funny.  The series as well as the movie are based on the trials of middle school and the main character’s struggles with popularity.  The books are amazingly funny.  The movie doesn’t really live up to the books.

The problem with the movie is that everyone in the book is a caricature of an archetype.  For a book with illustrations, that is no problem at all.  But for a live action movie, you have to turn the caricatures into real people.  This isn’t something that child actors can do and I am not sure that they were even asked to try and be more of what they were supposed to be.  The bratty girl is the only one that came close and that is because being bratty is easy. 

The books just don’t work on the big screen.  They were perfect in book form.  That is how the story was meant to be told.  It is episodic and fragmented and that just doesn’t make for a great movie. 

Hit girl was in it and that was distracting. 

Google Reader Review

Image via CrunchBase

So since Vox died, I have been using google reader to keep up with what was left of my Vox neighborhood and the people that I was following on Blogger.  While it is no replacement for the Vox neighborhood it is actually more functional for the web as a whole. 

You don’t get to follow comments, which would be my only complaint.  You can sort your feeds into as many folders as you would like.  It keeps stats on who you are actually reading by tracking who you click through to.  It even tracks how many you read in a day.  It is pretty cool and I am sure that it does way more than what I have been using it for. 

More great news is that it will track any site that has an RSS feed, so you can get updates to your web comics and new sites there as well.  I am pretty sure you can link your twitter into it as well.  So, what are you waiting for give Google Reader a try for yourself. 

Visit to Salem, MA

Sorry, I have been away from the computer for a while and then trying to get caught up on things. 

This Saturday we went to Salem, MA to check out some haunted happenings.  The drive from from our house is about 20 miles so you know that it took about 2hrs to get there.  I think MA purposely makes local roads suck so that you have to take the turnpike.  Well, I refuse, my tax money already goes to pay for road maintenance, why should I be taxed twice. 

So we get there and have to figure out where things are and which witch museum to go to.  Our first stop was the Samantha statue.   Then we checked out the Witch’s Dungeon as it was supposed to be a better production. 

While in line, someone recommended the Witch’s Cottage as being really good.  We checked that one out as well.  Both were educational and you could tell that the people knew a lot about the local lore and were just itching to answer questions.   The Dungeon was only about the Salem Witch Trials and the Cottage was about the local lore and haunts.  The cottage is actually a play house and the production was really good.  I would say that it was a better value. 

The Salem Halloween experience is unique and there are lots of people in costume and crazy things going on.  It is tourist trappy but that is a lot of fun sometimes.  I would recommend checking it out. 

Eulogy for Mammaw

Ouieda Grant(Black) 1921-2010
My grandmother on my father's side passed away early Tuesday morning.  I have not been asked to deliver a eulogy, but I feel the need to write one anyway. 

Jesus told the parable of the talents where the good and faithful servant took the one talent, invested it, and made a profit.  He was then entrusted with more talents.  This describes my mammaw.  She was given but a few talents here on Earth to be trusted with and she invested these in her family and loved ones and returned a net profit.  In Heaven, I am sure she will be entrusted with much more because she was a good and faithful servant. 

Her life wasn't easy.  Born in 1921, she survived the great depression, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and both gulf wars.  She outlived two husbands and one of her own children.  She fought breast cancer and won before it was cool to put pink ribbons on everything.  She wouldn't have said that any of that was special, and alone it really isn't, but mammaw carried herself through these trials and tribulations with her head held high and her heart humble and reverent.  I am not exaggerating when I say that she is the most Christian woman I have ever known. 

She was stubborn, oh was she stubborn.  But not just in the hard headed way.  She was stubborn in love, faith, and family.  Once she put her mind to doing something, it got done.  Some people have even called her mean.  She wasn't really mean, but she was brutally honest and very direct.  She didn't pull her punches.  She was also forgiving.  I never knew her to hold a grudge and she was always willing to give people second chances, or third, or fourth ones.  She loved almost to a fault.  She cared for my pappaw as he said his long goodbye.  She wouldn't put him in a home and cared for him to the very end.  A lesser person would have broken into a million pieces, but she held strong and would eventually remarry to nice widower. 

She influenced my life more than any other person.  She relentlessly urged her children and grandchildren into church, some of which, would surely have caused the church to burst into flames upon entering.  She would put away her disappointment if the invitation was refused and would just start on the next week.  She carried me to church when I visited on summers, read from her bible, and quizzed me on my bible lessons.  But my faith was only one aspect that she influenced.  She showed me what strength and leadership were.  She had principles and one of those principles was standing up fearlessly for her principles.  She wasn't afraid to admit when she was wrong and overcame prejudices.  She was smart, I didn't even realize how much so until I got old enough to realize how little I knew myself. There are many times in my life that the only thing that kept me out of serious trouble was not wanting to disappoint mammaw.  At a rough point in my marriage, not wanting to disappoint her helped give me the strength to power through.  I can honestly say that I would have given up on my marriage had she not been around during that time. 

She wasn't perfect, but she would have been the first person to tell you that.  But, to me, she was a superwoman.  She was adept in all the traditional womanly arts, but also had a business sense about her.  The woman would get up at 5am every morning and cook for anyone that came through her kitchen door.  She loved giving to people.  She bailed my mom out of some tough spots during and after her marriage to my dad.  I have no idea how she did everything she did, or how she held herself and her family together for as long as she did.  No, actually I do.  She prayed.  I have no doubt of that.  Her faith gave her comfort and stilled her heart.  It gave her temperance and allowed her to forgive.  It took her loving, giving spirit and amplified it. 

Mammaw took the talents she was given and invested them in those all around her.  Some bared fruit and some are still seeds or seedlings waiting to sprout.  When she gets to Heaven (I have no doubt about that), God will call her to him and tell her, "Good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few things on Earth, so I will set you over many things in Heaven.  She will have rewards in Heaven, but that is only a result and was never her motivation.  The good was reason enough.  If she had a dying wish, I am sure it would have been that everyone that mourns her passing or celebrates her life will find their way to church this Sunday.