19 December 1998: A Bug's Life

Saturday, 19 December 1998:

A Bug's Life

I finally did get a long night of good sleep last night. I went to bed before midnight (woo-hoo!) and slept until nearly 10 am, and lay in bed for another half hour beyond that. The cats enjoyed it. They always know that by 10 or so if I'm still home, then I'm going to be home a lot that day. They love that.

The afternoon was fundamentally unstructured. I hacked around the Internet for a while, and then went out and did a little shopping. Bought the one thing I specifically went out to get, but did not have much luck with the other stuff. But no big deal.

Came home and watched some Homicide re-runs. The two-part episode "Sniper" starts off strong, with a sniper shooting random people from rooftops for no apparent reason. It's pretty intense for the first three quarters of the first part, but then it tails off as the shooter's motives are never satisfactorily explained. Yes, I know to some extent he's just supposed to be a nut, but why is he a nut? Given the specifics of his situation, the story dramatically requires the writers to throw us a bone in that direction. The story then continues into the second episode, which is all essentially unnecessary. Disappointing, given the successful build-up.

And the demotion of Captain Russert, and subsequent passing-over of Giardello, is all completely unnecessary, bordering on silly.

The next episode, "The Hat", is pretty lightweight. Surprisingly, Lily Tomlin was apparently nominated for an Emmy for her performance in it. Hard to see why; she does a good job, but with very thin material.

Laurel Krahn says she thinks the series started going downhill in the fourth season. It's hard to disagree with her, so far. A little too much sensationalism, and efforts to be "clever", rather than telling solid stories with their good characters. The show is actually at its best in its low-key, highly believable examinations of its scenarios, when it makes you say, "You mean that's it?" and then you say, "Well yeah, that's how it would probably be, and it's good enough like that." Seeing characters overreact or start falling into standard nighttime drama behavior does not work.

In the evening I went with my friend Bill to see A Bug's Life, the new film from Disney and Pixar, the people who brought us Toy Story (which I haven't seen).. The animation, as you might expect, ranges from impressive to fantastic, although the direction perhaps doesn't make the fullest use of the animation that it could. And the story, although charming in many ways, is also riddled with cliches. Still, it's a movie that's worth seeing. It's fun.

Afterwards, Bill and I went to Michael's Frozen Custard, and then he lent me some fixative for my Robo Rally figures, since their paint has been flaking a little. So tomorrow I hope to touch them up and spray them. That oughta fix 'em! (Yuk, yuk, yuk!)

Several on-line journallers have been talking about the impeachment hearings. Notably Diane Patterson, who writes an impressively scathing and right-on piece about it (for which she says she's gotten hate mail).

I've been mostly ignoring the whole thing, since it falls in that class of things best defined as "things I can't do much about anyway, and am not sure I'd want to even if I could." It's so obviously a completely partisan issue, with the Republicans so obviously just interested in pulling down Clinton and using any tool they can find to do it. And the sad part is, I'd almost rather wish they would, since I think Al Gore would make a fine President, would get handily re-elected in 2000, and would generally make the 'Pubs regret the whole thing.

So the first thing that actually surprised me and made me take notice was when Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana - the Speaker-to-be - announced yesterday that due to his own admissions of marital infidelity he's decided to resign from the House in six months. I wonder if perhaps the 'Pubs are on the verge of imploding. It's too bad the so-called "moderates" in the party are so weak and/or wimpy, or this might represent a real opportunity to take control of the party back from the loony right wing.

(You might wonder why I call them "so-called" moderates. Mainly because they're really conservatives - old-time conservatives, more interested in fiscal issues than ideological dogma. As opposed to the radical conservatives who control the party now. And as opposed to the would-be-socially-liberal-if-they-had-the-guts conservatives who control the Democratic party. There is no major party of liberalism in the United States today that I'm aware of. And anyone who asserts that Bill Clinton is a liberal deserves to be laughed out of town.)

My call is that the Senate argues about things for a month or so, and then fails to get Clinton out of office, and then the Republicans go on an anti-Clinton hate campaign for the next two years. Which might actually work, in the sense that they will be perfectly positioned to beat Bill Clinton.

Who, of course, won't be running for office in 2000.

Okay, now I guess I've walked about this. Onwards to more deserving things.

Tomorrow.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)