Life in 3D

Music Friday: A Declaration

A realm of pissed off that I don’t visit often

A school district in Philadelphia has been spying on it’s students – in their HOMES!

According to the suit, the school district in the hoity-toity suburb of Lower Merion Township issued laptops to its high school students for them to use in class and at home. These laptops came with a catch, though: They were outfit with software that allowed the district to turn on the computers’ webcams whenever they wanted and record what was going on.

Really?!?!  Are you fucking kidding me!!?!  Who in the HELL came up with this fucking harebrained idea??  I have never been an advocate of students needing computers in high school for class, much less school resources being spent on laptops, software, tech support and all the other crap that goes along with them when that money could be used for art, teachers, sports and extra curricular activities.

Sure, have a class with computers in it for the computer programing classes, or animation, whatever.  Or have them in the library for research, but I can’t see the need to provide every student with their own laptop.  Apparently, the reason for students having their own school issued laptop was so they could be spied on.

Incredibly, the school district allegedly saw nothing unusual about this and actually disciplined a child, Blake Robbins, for “improper behavior in his home,” using photo evidence gathered surreptitiously from the webcam as part of its case. It’s unclear so far if the school was also collecting other information like emails and web browsing activity. Either way, the district didn’t disclose to the students or their parents that there would be any monitoring via the webcam.

So, we have unknown persons who are able to turn on the webcams whenever they want.  And since those same persons probably have access to the list of who has what laptop I am going to guess that they were able to look any time they wanted to at say, the cheerleaders in the school, or maybe the jock football players and capture screen images of them in various stages of undress.

Personally, if this was my child that this happened to, I would be in a state of pissed off that I rarely visit and stay in long enough to hurt someone very badly.  Who the HELL do these people think they are that they can just spy on underage kids whenever they want to?  I would like to see each and every person involved in this brought up on criminal charges, fired, and then thrown in jail for a very long time.

Schools are supposed to be a place for our kids to learn, they are NOT replacements for the parents and for this district to decide that they somehow have a right to do this is unfathomable.  It shows that they are completely out of touch with reality and have no place in education or in dealing with kids.

Everyone of these idiots should be thrown in jail.  I want to know the times, dates and computers they activated and who did it.

I will bet dollars to doughnuts that this system was abused in a very big way.

Yet another reason I’m going to do homeschooling.

The Money Thief

I was honestly looking forward to The Lightning Thief.  I had read the books and thought that they were nicely done with a linear storyline that lent itself very well to being turned into a script.  Apparently I was either VERY badly mistaken, or Craig Titley didn’t bother to actually read the book and only used crib notes while he turned out the screenplay for this Olympian sized disappointment.

Considering the other movies to his credit (Cheaper By The Dozen 1 and 2, Scooby-Do, and a TV “documentary’ that contends the moon landing was faked) I will contend that transforming a book with three strong main characters in Percy, Grover and Annabeth into a strong movie was far beyond his capacity as a writer.

**Spoilers Ahead**

While the books were fun and enjoyable to read, the movie plodded along as if everyone that was part of it was simply going through the motions.  Percy discovering that he is a demi-god is met with the same level of emotion as when his mother is killed by the Minotaur (yes, the same one).  A few brief words of “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it..” and then we are off to the next scene.  The entire movie felt like one forced scene after another and every one was disjointed and smashed together.  There was never a point where you felt like the picture had a pacing or flow to it that allowed the plot to reveal itself.  Instead every plot point is shoved in your face as if the entire audience is far too stupid to figure it out without big clues and signs.

In the books Percy’s parentage is slowly revealed because he is special.  In the books the “Big Three”, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had agreed not to have any more children with mortals because the last time they did it ended up with WWII being fought.  So Percy’s existence is chancy to say the least.  Just by breathing he has put the gods closer to going to war again.  In the books when Poseidon claims his son it’s a big deal, everyone is in shock.  In the movie it’s revealed by Chiron taking Percy to his cabin and saying “Here your father built this for you.” and the cabin looks like Captain Jack’s version of home with ships wheels and nautical items everywhere.

Every scene is rushed through to such a point that you end up wondering why one character helping the other.  They meet in the morning and by that night they are suddenly leaving together to go on a quest of life and death proportions??? Percy arrives at Camp Half Blood and somehow after only one day there is suddenly a huge bad ass with a sword and shield.  HUH??  Also, at the end of that single day he runs off on his quest to get Zeus’ lightning back.  In the books it is approached as a quest with the heroes consulting the Oracle of Delphi and being sent out but the movie can’t be bothered with this and instead resorts to having Zeus accuse Percy of stealing his lightning bolt for no reason at all except that he is Poseidon’s son.  Which, if it was stolen for the sake of stealing then Zeus would have looked to Hermes if anyone who wrote the script had thought about it for a moment.

The movie also removed Aries and Kronos as major characters, in fact, they aren’t even mentioned while in the book they are a couple of the central characters involved in the theft of Zeus’ lighting in the first place.  The movie version, in the end, makes no sense at all because events in this book lead to the next book so with the resolution that happens at the end of the movie, there is no need for a sequel.  To be totally honest though, it’s probably for the best.  All I can say in defense of this movie is that they didn’t have metachlorian’s in it.

Also, a final note, Camp Half Blood looked like it occupied all of about half an acre of land in the movie.  You would think they could have at least made the camp look somewhat believable instead of looking like it was constructed out of Lincoln Logs.

Best Joke I Heard All Day

A U.S. Marine squad was marching north of Fallujah when they came upon an
Iraqi terrorist who was badly injured and unconscious.

On the opposite side of the road was an American Marine in a similar but
less serious state. The Marine was conscious and alert and as first aid was
given to both men, the squad leader asked the injured Marine what had
happened.

The Marine reported, “I was heavily armed and moving north along the highway
here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent.

We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road. I
yelled to him that Saddam Hussein was a miserable, lowlife scum bag who got
what he deserved.

And he yelled back that Barack Obama is a lying, good-for-nothing, left wing
Commie who isn’t even an American.

So I said that Osama Bin Laden dresses and acts like a frigid, mean-spirited
lesbian!

He retaliated by yelling, “Oh yeah? Well, so does Nancy Pelosi!”

“And, there we were, in the middle of the road, shaking hands, when a truck
hit us.”