Nanny, Inc.

This has been a long week for me. I'm almost finished laying laminate flooring in a 6' x 6' room, a project that's taken me roughly two weeks. If I did it again it'd take about two days, but there's a fairly steep learning curve that I had to get up.

The SO has managed to turn success into money this week with a few paid days at a local non-profit outfit. It tickles me to see her talents becoming recognized. Her ambition is to go to work as a project manager, ideally in the publishing industry, and I see this as part of her making her bones in that market.

Spekaing of which: I just finished (in under two days) The Godfather. I'm oddly old-fashioned in that I believe in reading the book before seeing what the director did to it. At the moment I'm feeling an odd urge to go out and buy a shiny charcoal-grey suit.

Apparently Mario Puzo simply decided in 1960-something that he would sit down and write a bestseller. Sod. Could I pull that off? Just decide to write a critically-acclaimed multi-million-copy seller? Note to self: Must grow overweening ambition, ruthlessness.

Also buy new suit.

Caught the latest Harry Potter film a couple of days ago. It felt oddly skeletal. In boiling a six-hundred-page novel into a two-and-a-half-hour film, the director made a smart choice: Assume that everyone has read the book. This means that many of the important subleties are a bit reduced in scope. If you haven't read the book, even if you have read all the others, you'll find it a litte "gappy".

Hollywood is all out of worthy stories, as is demonstrated by the trailer for the film Narnia. It was inevitable, following the triumph of Peter Jackson's Rings and the degrading misery of Star Warts Episodes One through Three, that some clown around a boardroom meeting-table would suggest doing it:

"Well, boys, this looks like the end. All the great sagas have been done: Godfathers I through VI, Star Wars One through Six. Hell, even Friday the Thirteenth Parts I through Freddy VS Jason. We might as well just shut down now."

"Hold it J.P. I got a swell idea for a picture the kids are gonna love. It's wholesome, British in an Americanizable way, and it's full of talking animals."

"Hmm. I think I'm thinking what you're thinking. Can we get Pamela Anderson into it?"

"Actually, no. Not in a main role, but we might get a cameo by Tonya Harding as one of the weasels."

"Weasels? Where are the weasels in C.S. Lewis' beloved children's classic?"

"Oh. Um, I was thinking of Wind in the Willows."

"Hmmm. Lemme think on that: 'WitW'. Well sure. Why not? Get a writer on it--got anything else for me?"

"Sure. I got one about a son who's on a quest to avenge his father, but everything takes a tragic wrong turn when he starts deceiving his friends about his intentions and his state of mind. In the end he winds up morally bankrupt, estranged from those who care for him most, and responsible for the deaths of a boatload of innocents."

"Hamlet?"

"No-The Madness of President George."

"Ah, let's shelve that one. For at least 1149 days, eh?"

Oh, and by the way: We won, finally. Sort of. The yutzes who control trade south of the 49th are still trying to hold onto their ill-gotten 5 billion in illegal duties. But we won, and that's important.It shows that NAFTA can work even in the face of determined opposition from one of the participants.

News today includes the fascinating information that the Sony Playstation will soon be equipped with "parental controls". This is supposed to let parents choose what level of violence is acceptable in the games their kids will be playing, and let them restrict games rated more "mature" than that.

In the same article, I notice that the average age of game players is reckoned to be about thirty.

And I confess, I can think of few people who need protecting from violence more than thirty-year-olds who are still living with their parents, especially if they spend most of their time playing video games.

As for the ostensible targets of this "protection"--When you want the VCR or DVD player programmed, to whom do you turn? That's right, your twelve-year-old.

"Okay Jimmy, Mummy and Daddy need you to make sure you can't play any nasty games they don't approve of, so could you please set the parental controls to "J" for 'Juvenile'? And can you reset the illegal cable descrambler so that Mummy can tape Coronation Street again?"

"Sure Mum. Just let me finish this game of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."