I really need to get a job as a movie critic, just so I can stop paying to go see a movie just about every weekend. I saw The Bourne Supremacy today, and I was very surprised with how good it was. Much better than the first. Though they still pale compared to the books. But taken for what they are, the movies are fun to watch. I appreciated that the movie didn't get into too many double-cross issues. Though one or two things didn't make much sense, but characters are never as bright as me. Besides the story, it was nice that so many of the previous cast came back, it lent the film a sense of continuity that is often lacking in sequels. Just think of Batman and you will know what I mean. The movie also had the same feel and look as the first, including using Moby's Extreme Ways for the title track again. Hey if it works, it works.
I went out to find the books but I couldn't find The Bourne Identity at Barnes & Noble, so I figured maybe next weekend I'll scour some used bookstores I know. The last time I read them was in college. I started reading Ludlum in high school and continued into college, usually checking them out of the library as a reward for reading books for college. I do miss all that stage of my education involving research and looking at old books in the library.
Anyway, now I have my mind set on becoming the next Gene Shallot.

Well the endless car fun just keeps me so aggravated.  I took the car to a different mechanic after the smog check place took two weeks just to not find the problem and then of course didn't reconnect my alarm...So I asked this other place to check it out and he couldn't find the problem unless its a problem with the car's computer. So he told me that he "pulled some strings" and now I am all set.  Well except the problem still exists, though now I at least get my car registered.  Oh and I asked him to check the alarm, and he said sure, but when I got the car, only the keyless entry works, not the alarm or the audible chime when you leave the keys in or you take off your seatbelt.....So I have to go back to the original smog check place and yell at that guy to fix the alarm that he disconnected in the first place.
     Then it's back to the guy who put the new alternator in back in February, because that is making a grinding noise.
      All this has me hunting around online for a new car. I will end up losing money on this one when I trade it in, as I still owe.  But I am looking at a few different cars right now.  Though I suppose someone could always buy me this and make me very happy.
 

Mmmmm Beer......So obviously it is time for a serious look at the need for prison reform not just in Iraq but here at home.  If it's not severe abuses by guards or guards betting on prison fights, or being bribed to allow drugs into prisons or allowing prisoners to rape and kill each other....then we have to deal with complete incompetence of a 7.5 on the Barney Fife scale.  The thing that I find most funny about this case is that the guys came back to jail.       I wouldn't punish these guys. The officials at the jail should be punished for allowing them to escape.  No to mention not even having enough orange jumpsuits to go around.  And what ever happened to the good old black and white striped prison clothes?      Ahh....Forget it. Meanwhile yuckkkkk Nachos?? .......Seriously man, what were you thinking? The sad thing is you can just imagine Bush envying these guys for all their fun times he gave up when he quit drinking and snorting.

It's amusing to me when people forget that there have always been at least 2 Americas. How many times have you heard about how this country was founded for religious freedom and the colorful happy tale of the Pilgrims and how Thanksgiving was the start of a new nation. Put aside the myths of religious freedom and the whole happy family Thanksgiving crap and let's just look at the assumption that this was the birth of a new nation. Plymouth colony was founded in the late winter of 1620 by those wonderful folks aboard the Mayflower.
           Jamestown was founded in Virginia in 1607  and became the first permanent English settlement.  That's a good 13 years before the Pilgrims made their journey.
            Either way you look at it, both colonies were created for one basic purpose to make money for the King and the shareholders in the companies that were granted the charters to found colonies. Money.  Once tobacco was cultivated around 1612 in Virginia labor became a problem so we introduce indentured servants. Later of course slavery is established.
           Moving away from those issues, the basic fact is this country was established by people who sought to make money.  Charles Beard was one of the first people to examine the economic motives for Revolution in the colonies and while he was much criticized for it he was on to something. There is no denying that economics played an important role in fomenting revolution.  That isn't to say that human rights and a yearning to be free were not factors,  they were very important.
           It does bug me when people focus so much on the Pilgrims and ignore the economic motives that helped establish this country to begin with. Because those same motives play an important role to this day. Just as people value freedom and human rights in America so too do people value money and the acquisition of it. Even if it means trampling on certain rights and created indentured servants of a new kind.