Laura drives a stick shift... sort of...

We recently got a used car for Laura. It was decided that we could no longer put off getting a different car for her. I guess the fact that it leaked oil like a stuck pig, has had no air conditioning for the last two years, shuddered at stop lights, shaked a little when accelerating and had over 240,000 miles on it had something to do with it losing it's appeal in Laura's eyes. I guess she didn't like the drenching car rides home in 100 degree weather. I tried to tell her that sweating is a cleansing process and to enjoy it, but she didn't buy it.

Laura spotted her dream car one day when we dropped her old car off to get a seal fixed in the engine block. We had to rent a car and the car they gave us was a Mazda 3. Laura fell in love with it. The fact that it seemed to be able to go from 0 to 60 in way under 10 seconds might have had something to do with it. Laura tends to be a speed demon and is constantly urging me to speed or questioning why I'm not speeding.

We looked at used Mazda 3s, but were disappointed to see that most were out of our price range that we felt comfortable paying. I suggested that she look at getting one with a manual transmission, which seemed to knock 1500 dollars off the blue book value.

Laura agreed that this was an option, but the only problem was that Laura couldn't drive a stick shift.

I had learned how to drive one when I was working bridge construction and had to drive the huge dump truck. The two cars after that had a manual transmission, so I have plenty of experience driving one. I had tried to teach Laura on two occasions when I coincidentally had a manual transmission car when we were dating. Those occasions were a disaster as Laura couldn't seem to get the car out of first gear.

I would smoothly say, "Eaaase out the clutch."

She would pull the clutch off very suddenly while punching the gas. The car lurched and lurched.

After many instances of this, I was no longer smoothly saying anything. Instead, I was screaming, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" as the car lurched and buckled forward. I was envisioning permanent transmission damage.

So it was with a big of apprehension when Laura decided that she was going to compromise and get the stick shift Mazda 3 that we had seen at a local car dealership.

Agreed, not everyone needs to know how to drive a manual transmission before buying one, although it helps.

I always think of the show The Amazing Race when I think of manual transmissions. The show has been on the air for years now, so you would assume that every contestant has seen the show by now. Every season, the contestants will get to a country and have to grab a car to drive that has a manual transmission. Most teams jump in and drive off. There is at least one team that will get in the car and go, "It's a stick! I don't know how to drive a stick!"

Now if you've ever seen the show, they always go to at least country where the dominant transmission is a manual one. Why on Earth would you not practice before you start filming the show? But I digress...

Laura has been out practicing on her own and is getting pretty decent at shifting. At first, she was cheating in that she'd come up to a Stop sign and then come to rolling stop and then go again, which totally defeats the purpose. I ordered her to come to a complete stop in preparation of the first time that she had to stop at a stop light.

We have been commuting together three days a week to save on gas and so far, it's been me that's driven her car to work. There are three reasons for this. One, she isn't confident enough to drive herself. Two, she claims that I tend to yell at her when she's suddenly forgetting how to shift into first gear, which is more or less true, but I disagree on the tone and severity of the yelling. Three, she likes to be dropped off at her building by the front door as it saves her the extra time that she'd normally be parking and walking back to the building.

She has taken the car to work by herself, but she's still nervous. Whenever Laura kills it at a stoplight, she seems to take a step back in progress. Then, she's more tentative, which makes it worse.

We saw the Simpsons Movie with Julia...

I'm starting to feel the need to get back into the swing of things and put out sordid details of my personal life for all of the world to read. Heaven knows, I don't spend nearly enough time dishing with my fellow employees to get all of this out of my system. My wife clearly is tired of hearing me talk about them as she recently admitted to me that she usually only pays attention to the first and last thing that I've told her, which is really quite touching.

On Saturday, we decided to go see a movie as a family. Usually, we're stuck with the family fare of movies like Ice Age, the Shrek movies, and such, but recently we did get to see A Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller, so we're hopefully starting to swing towards some movies we can all enjoy. Laura suggested that we go to see Underdog, but then I suggested that we go see The Simpsons Movie. Laura shrugged and said, "Sure". Julia seemed to be just as excited to see either movie, so it was settled on The Simpsons Movie.

I had heard from a co-worker who took his son to see The Simpsons Movie that it was very inappropriate for children. I heard it, but completely forgot that he told me this until he reminded me on Monday that he told me not to see it.

I guess I kind of knew what I was in for by taking out daughter Julia to see the movie. She had just turned 6 about two weeks ago. I remembered back that when I was her age I was often seeing movies that I probably shouldn't have like Jaws or Smokey and the Bandit. We also had HBO in our house so seeing those movies wasn't too hard because my parents couldn't sit down and watch everything with us. I think they were trusting the judgment of my older brothers, but they tended to gravitate towards the movies that my twin brother, Bill, and I shouldn't have been watching, so I'll just blame them (read with sarcasm guys...).

The Simpsons Movie is rated PG-13 and for good reason. While the series often features mature humor with their violence and sexual innuendo, it's still a little tame by movie standards. Free of the shackles of TV censors, The Simpsons Movie amps up the jokes to a more vulgar degree.

The movie centers around the pollution in the lake in Springfield and how Homer's love of a pig ultimately dooms the town. It seems hard to believe that the two are related, but they are.

One part of the movie really stood out for us...

Homer and Bart are fighting early in the movie. Homer then starts daring Bart to do things. Ultimately, he dares Bart to skateboard naked to the Krusty Burger and back or he'll call Bart cowardly for the rest of his life. Bart takes off naked. For a while, you only see his bottom. Then he switches to the front view and his lower is body blocked by a series of sight gags. Then, he moves behind a fence and you get a nice view of his... umm... noodle... before he trips and plasters his naked body in front of a glass window with only Ned Flander's french fry covering up that part.

Laura and I roared with laughter, but also cringed. At the same time, we both looked over at each other and winceed. Julia was roaring with laughter.

All in all the movie is really funny with only a few parts that made us wince: A character flips a crowd off, two guys kiss and a few references to sex. Otherwise, it's a real family pleaser!

The next day, we are at the YMCA to go swimming. Julia is getting dressed in the family locker room when she tells me, "Daddy, do you know what my favorite part of The Simpsons Movie was?"

I ask, "What?"

Now I'm not a genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I did gather some subtle hints that peaked my interest and gave me a good guess.

Earlier that day, I was getting dressed and three times during that process of getting dressed in my bedroom, Julia burst in. I finally had to yell at her to stop walking in as I was trying to get dressed.

So later that day at the YMCA when Julia said, "When you get to see Bart's WEINER!!", I really wasn't that surprised for some reason. I had a hunch you could say...

"You did, huh?" I asked sheepishly.

"YEAH! It was so FUNNY!!!" she laughed.

I laughed, but then reminded her that this probably isn't a very good topic to discuss at school because it was inappropriate. She agreed.

I think I remember bragging all the time in grade school that I got to see a lot of movies that I probably shouldn't have like Animal House and Caddyshack, but that was in the 70s when such actions were deemed cool. Nowadays, it could probably get you into some hot water with other nosy parents.

I would like to point out that we in no way let Julia watch stuff that's inappropriate for her. You would think that me with my liberal dose of unhealthy movies when I was younger wouldn't mind if Julia got exposed to movies for older viewers. Well, you would be wrong. While I cherish every memory of that time, it also made me a paranoid mess when I was growing up. You try to relax swimming in a lake during the summer when you think that there's a slight possibility that a shark like Jaws or piranhas like the movie Piranha are going to attack you. You try to sleep when you think that some demon in your house is going to possess you, like in the Amityville Horror. You try not to be afraid of spiders after watching Kingdom of the Spiders when you're a little kid. For good measure, show a little kid Earthquake and then ask him if he's afraid of the Earth moving beneath him.

This was a lesson, though. There are several sites out there, like Parent Preview, that screen movies and rate them based on family friendliness. They even list the objectionable parts. Next time, I'm going to check out that site before going to see a questionable movie.

Harry Potter and my criticisms...

I've been procrastinating in my writing for the past several weeks as I've been working on several book ideas, all of which will probably never see the light of day. Here's a small story about my liking of the Harry Potter books and my critiques of them.

...

I was going to write that I was sad to admit that I'm a Harry Potter book fan. Then I realized that this wasn't true. I am not sad at all to say that I like the Harry Potter books made famous by J.K. Rowling. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit it sometimes, but not sad.

I was first introduced to the Harry Potter books before the first movie came out. I was all set to do my rankings for the movie pool that some guys I know and I do, in which we rank the box office success of movies in the summer and winter. The first movie was set to come out and I was going to rank it low. I made the comment to my twin brother, Bill, that I didn't think that it was going to do that well. He assured me that there were legions of Harry Potter fans out there dying to see the movies. I had never read the books before. I had seen them in stores and I'd sometimes seen stories in the newspaper about the books, but I had never thought to read them.

Bill suggested that I read them because they were good, in his opinion.

The fourth book in the series, "The Goblet of Fire", was already out in stores. I borrowed a friend's copy of the first book, "The Sorcerer's Stone" and set to work reading it. I started when I was going on a software installation trip, which was a 3-hour drive each way. This was the perfect time to start. I didn't think I would gain much interest in the book, or care what happens in the book, but before I knew it, I had zoomed through 200 of the pages over the trip. Finishing that book, I checked out the next two books and devoured those in a timely fashion. Then, I borrowed the fourth book from Bill and tore through that, too.

It was nice to have the gift of being able to read the books without having to wait, but then I was like other fans and having to wait for the next three books to come out.

I read the sixth book, "The Half-Blood Prince", when it came out about two years ago when I started my new job. I had heard that someone was going to die in the book, which was hinted at as a beloved character. So of course, I sped through the book to find out who it was. I finished in record time and then became disappointed that I was going to have to wait a long time for the last book.

The final book came out Saturday, July 21st. I was one of those geeks out there clamoring for the book. I bought it and immediately tried to get through it in record time again.

While I was waiting this year, I had thought it would be best that I should re-read all the books in order because I remember that when I was reading the last book, I had to clamor my memory in vain for details about who some of the characters were.

I knew I'd never had the time or patience to read all six books, so I did the next best thing, I listened to the audio books. This was not easy. The first book is a manageable 8 hours long. The second is about 9 hours long. The third books clocks in at a little under 12 hours long. Then the fourth book cranks it up a notch and comes galloping it at 20 hours long! Just when I thought that was intense, the fifth book lumbers in like an elephant at over 26 hours long!! The sixth book takes a step back at under 19 hours in length. All in all, I had over 90 hours of audio to listen to in a month's time.

I managed to do it, and I was glad that I did. Because I couldn't skim, I was forced to listen to every detail of the story so I was reminded of things I that I didn't quite remember, like who some of the minor characters were, some of the odd side story details and things like that. What was really eye opening was that I felt like I was reading the sixth book, "The Half-Blood Prince", for the very first time. I was riveted as each chapter ended because not only had I not remembered what each chapter was about, but I didn't know what was going to happen next. I vividly remembered the last part of the book, but that was it.

"Had I even read the book?" I asked myself in disbelief.

So I finally got through every book with 10 days to kill until the last book came out. I purchased my book at midnight with the other fanatics (reading the first chapter while I was in line to buy it) and spent the next two days reading the whole thing. I literally couldn't sleep while I was reading it because I was thinking about the plot when I laid down and then my head wouldn't quiet to let me sleep. I tried going to sleep at 1 am on Saturday night, but seeing as I couldn't sleep, I kept tossing and turning. I decided to get up and read. Before I knew it, it was 3 am. Normally 5 hours of sleep would make me a zombie for that day, but I was as wide awake as I could remember on Sunday when I got up at 8 am. I started reading again. Finally, I finished the book at 9 pm Sunday night without getting it spoiled for me.

All in all, it was a great end to a great series. While I realize that it's a series meant for kids, it's definitely written so that any age can enjoy it, kind of like reading the Davinci Code.

Now that I'm done, there are a few things that bother me about the Harry Potter universe. I realize it's a fantasy world, but the world depicted in the Harry Potter books has a few flaws.

For instance, the books are set in the early 1990s, but the wizards in the Potter world still live as if it's the middle ages. They use quills and ink wells. The students at Hogwarts turn in their papers handwritten with the quills on rolled up pieces of parchment. The library is as medieval as possible with every book published in hard cover. There seem to be no copying machines or computers to help the students along. I would think that with all the advances that wizards have in their world, they would have something better to come along to make their lives easier when it comes to writing. The only thing that is shown like this is a Quick Quotes Quill used by a reporter for the newspaper, but that's about it.

Oh sure, they'll use magic to clean up a mess or repair something that's broke, but they still feel the need to be like the book copiers of the past.

The pictures in the Potter world are like three-dimensional composites of people with the subjects looking around, smiling, waving, etc. Sometimes, the subjects leave the photos because they have something better to do. This is a great idea, so why doesn't it apply to other technology?

I mentioned computers above. Why don't they use a lexus nexus-like super computer that is inhabited by a fairy spirit that can dish out whatever information that they want? It could have the same 3D pictures.

I also noticed that in the Potter world, that no one ever watches television or even has a television. In one book, some of the characters are huddled around a radio and listening to a song. Why don't they watch television? For a group of people that seem to love visual things, as evidenced by their advanced photos that move, paintings that talk, books that have personalities, etc. they seem not to care about missing television. What with their favorite game, Quidditch, being a very intense, visual sport, it would seem that television would have been a natural. While we're just adopting HGTV, they should be on 3D television by now.

This brings me to another oddity of the wizarding world, the use of owls. The wizards of the Potter world send owls for their letters and packages. While effective, it's hardly efficient. Sometimes, the owls have no idea where a person is and it takes them days to find that person. You would think that an instant message would be a lot quicker than having to wait for a message from an owl. In book 5, the students start a secret group and use gold coins to communicate with each other, but no one has invented the piece of wizard equipment that'd let you communicate like a cellphone instead of the clumsy method of owls.

When it comes time for wizards to use the Muggle (non-wizard) post office system, the wizarding world is perplexed. Harry got a letter from his friends in one book and the whole envelope was encased with stamps because they didn't know how many to use. Seeing as how they had to buy them, I'm sure they could have asked, but that would have been too obvious I guess.

Speaking of clumsy methods, I'm not a big fan of the wizards using a fire to communicate. In the books, they'll throw magic powder on a fire and stick their head in the fire to communicate with another person at the other end of the fire. While certainly clever, it's hardly convenient as the person must crouch down in front of the fire to talk. There is the added problem with what if the person doesn't have a fire going on the other end, but that's never a problem in the Potter world.

Like with other Muggle inventions, the telephone is beyond the grasp of wizard intelligence. Past attempts with Harry's friend, Ron, to try and use the telephone resulted in Ron shouting over and over because he didn't realize that he could be heard clearly. I can see why they prefer the fire method. Who among us doesn't want to get on our hands and knees on a hard marble floor and then thrust our face in a fire. Granted, forgetting to throw the magic powder into the fire first wouldn't be wise, but it's the price you pay for that kind of convenience.

Memories are another thing that I really don't understand in the Harry Potter universe. Wizards are able to extract silver strands of their memories and put them in vials. Then they can dump them in a stone basin called a pensieve. Then anyone can be plunged into the memory to see events that happened many years ago.

The pensieve is indeed a good story telling device as J.K. Rowling can go into flashback mode to show events that happened years ago for background purposes. Unfortunately, there are some loopholes in this. There have been a few times when Harry and his friends have seen something that no one believes, like when Lord Voldermort comes back in book 4. A few believe Harry, but most of the wizardly world don't. Couldn't they have extracted his memory of the event to show the truth? In the same book, another witness is killed (sort of) prior to the government officials hearing his confession, so the story isn't believe. Again, a pensieve could have saved them the trouble of having to wait a year to finally believe that Lord Voldermort had returned.

While I realize that this type of criticizing is pointless and on the geeky side, it's one of those things that I think about. J.K Rowling is supposedly going to be working on an encyclopedia of her Harry Potter world. Maybe she can enlighten me to my questions...