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September 19, 2013

Life Is Sloppy ....

Unless you're a member of the elite class with unlimited wealth to take care of most every need, life for the rest of us can be very sloppy. I have a feeling the Creator of our Universe (whoever that may be) had a great sense of humour when the great Almighty conceived of a planet that can be very, very hostile to its inhabitants.

Let's start with dust. Dust is everywhere, including the coffee you have sitting on your desk next to your computer, the toothbrush you have resting in it's little holder in your bathroom and every single piece of furniture, carpets, floors, and walls in your house or apartment. So we clean, we dust, we scrub and no matter how much effort we put into our forced labour, it's an ongoing battle to get rid of the dust our planet has gifted us with.

And then there are the bugs. I'm not talking about the big bugs such as grasshoppers, praying mantis, bees and caterpillars, but the wee tiny ones. We've got black flies, fruit flies, ticks, fleas, bed bugs, lice, maggots, dust mites ... need I go on? We spend millions, if not billions every year trying to eradicate these little devils. They feast on our bodies and blood, contaminate our food, cause untold number of diseases and deaths and we fight them in an unending battle that we know we'll always lose in the long run because no matter how many we kill, squash, stomp on and spray, they keep coming back at us. We cannot win, no matter how much we try.

Of course, the bugs do some good things, such as cleaning up a lot of our messes, but do they have to be so annoying? I read recently that if humans were to disappear off the face of the planet, bugs would just keep going on forever. However, if the bugs all disappeared from the earth, the human race wouldn't last a hundred years. Ironic, isn't it.

And then there are all the natural disasters — earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes — you get the picture. Life gets very, very sloppy for anyone who becomes a victim of any of these destructive violations that will change a family's life forever. What is hard to accept is there is very little we can do about any natural disaster except to clean up the mess they create and try to pick up the pieces and carry on.

There are places on earth considered Paradise, but for most of us, it's either too hot or too cold most of the time or there's too much snow and ice or it's too humid or too dry — weather can be such a bitch. So, we adjust our lifestyles to the weather and the seasons. Snow tires, snow blowers, and chains for our car tires if the slop gets really bad. We salt the roads to keep them free of snow and ice which, at the same time, helps rapidly deteriorate the very roads we're trying to keep cleared.

In the summer we bring out the fans, turn on the air conditioners and try to avoid walking on hot pavement in our bare feet. We drive down to the local WalMart through the heat and humidity, our eyes dripping sweat, our clothes clinging to our bodies, our faces red with sunburn, and step from the outdoor furnace to the freezing cold air conditioned store and immediately start shivering while we push our little carts around gathering all that good grub for tonight's BBQ party. Of course, in a few days a summer cold takes hold and now our bodies get to freeze and heat up at the same time as we sneeze our way through another wonderful July heat wave.

It seems weird to me that can we make a nice, hot, steaming cup of coffee and it tastes great but, if we leave it too long, it gets cold. And then, later in the day, we go to the fridge and pull out a nice cold beer. Of course, that cold beer is heading exactly where you don't want it to go ... it gets warm if you don't drink it right down. I don't get it. Why can't coffee (or tea) stay hot forever, or at least as long as it takes us to savour and enjoy the wonderful aroma and flavour? And there's nothing worse in the entire world than warm beer (except maybe cold fried eggs — actually, it's a tossup). The same thing happens with our food. I just don't get this hot to cold, cold to warm situation. Sure, we've invented special mugs that help keep the coffee hot for longer and special holders for our beer cans that keep it colder longer, but in the long run, they only slow down the inevitable.

And then there's the human body, which is a miracle in itself. However, there's all that hair that grows in places where we modern folk don't want it to grow. So we shave the places where hair isn't respectable most of the time. For most men, it's our faces and, as we get older, that nasty hair seems to double its efforts to embarrass us by teaming out of our noses and ears. But the one place we really want to keep our hair for as long as we can — on our heads — our hair decides to recede and eventually disappear altogether. Nuts! Of course, this doesn't apply to men who like hair on their faces or those who like the "sexy" look of going completely bald. But those guys are definitely in the minority.

The ladies have it even worse when it comes to hair. Not only do they have to pamper the hair on their heads, they're expected to eliminate hair on their legs, arms and all the other nooks and crannies where hair just isn't supposed to be. Shaving legs and under arms isn't a fun proposition, but most modern women put themselves through that torture in order to fit in with the respectable elements of society. Of course, there's always a few feminists around who repudiate this hair elimination task, but they don't really count because most of them aren't really feminine, now are they.

As we get older or, if we eat too much, women get big butts and men get big bellies. So we spend a fortune on exercise equipment, or gym memberships or we get into the "eat healthy" craze which the politically correct minions of society have turned into a war on hamburgers and pizza and booze and all of life's pleasures we indulge in to help us take our minds off how sloppy life is. Maybe life will be easier in fifty or a hundred years when scientists will have figured out how to turn half of our bodies into robots so we won't have to deal with so many sloppy parts. Everyone will virtually be Robo Cops, at that point. Of course, then we'll have to deal with oiling the machine parts in order to keep them running properly.

(Don't believe me? Check this out: We'll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045 and our bodies will be replaced by machines within 90 years)

Oh well, I won't be around by then so what does it matter. Not sure whether I'd rather eat lots of broccoli to stay healthy or suck on an oil can for sustenance. Either way, life is destined to remain sloppy no matter what we do.

So far I've haven't mentioned all the man made causes of sloppiness, but all of them go without saying. We have murder, fraud, corruption, lying, cheating ... the list goes on. Our species, no matter which era of history, seems to have a natural ability to create so many ways to make life not only sloppy, but downright nasty. If only we could all turn into Vulcans, with their amazing sense of logic and an ability to clearly understand reality. Maybe then we could let up a little on the hatred that divides many of our species that keeps the nastiness flowing like a burning river. It's always puzzled me as to why so many people in the world spend so much time being angry and violent. I guess it's in our genes or something so hopefully a hundred years from now when humans will all end up being Cyborgs, they'll replace the angry genes with happy genes and we'll finally get some peace and quiet — but I wouldn't count on it.

So, aside from all these obvious deficiencies in human nature, there's one nasty imposition most technologically efficient people have to deal with on a daily basis ... and it sucks — big time! It's worse than being murdered because at least if you're murdered you're dead and you can leave all this
sloppiness behind.

In the words of Monty Python: spam! spam! spam! spam! spam!

No, I don't want your latest weight loss program or your counterfeit Viagra or your advice on how to lower my mortgage interest rate on a house I don't own. It's amazing how many spammers in the world are so concerned with my health, home and happiness. Do they really get anyone in their right mind to take them up on their offers of a better life? Total strangers I meet in live situations never seem that concerned about my well being. Why would total strangers who happen to get a hold of my email addresses care if I get richer while working in my pyjamas?

I have to spend time deleting over 500 spam emails every day. Thanks spammers for making life so much fun ... and sloppy as hell!

What is most amazing about us humans is that despite all of the above, we endure. We remain enthralled by a beautiful sunset slowly dipping below the horizon. We get chills of appreciation when we hug a loved one. We vacuum, we scrub, and we take out the garbage every day.  We clean the dishes, paint the fence, cut the grass and we create beautiful landscapes, buildings and playgrounds because, even with all the sloppiness we must endure, there is beauty all around us. An amazing universe is out there, so we study the stars and dream of going places "where man has never gone before" ... somewhere without the damn bugs, I suspect.

"I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equal." - Sir Winston Churchill

Have a nice day!



September 09, 2013

TV Review: Detroit 1-8-7 (2010)


Cops shows on TV are a dime a dozen, from the various CSI series to the boy/girl shows such as Castle and Bones.

I've never gotten into the CSI shows or Law and Order, assuming that they're all essentially the same basic plot repeated over and over, which is why I avoided similar shows in years gone by, such as Barnaby Jones, Ironside and the original Hawaii 5-0. However, I was a fan of NYPD Blues because of its gritty realism and complicated relationships, so I never completely avoided cop shows.

Detroit 1-8-7 was not on my radar when it originally aired in 2010, but I decided to give it a try since it's one and only season is out on DVD. I've now watched all 18 episodes and, to my surprise, I was quite taken by the cast of characters and how they managed to come across as real people with real
problems that aren't always solved during the shows 42 minute run time.

What really sets a cop show apart from all the others, aside from the basic murder mystery plot, is its characters. They don't have to all be likeable, but it helps if they're at least unique and interesting.

Detective Louis Fitch played by Michael Imperioli is one of the most compelling characters on any show I've watched in recent years. There's a mystery going on with Fitch that slowly reveals itself over the course of the 18 episodes that helps keep the plots from getting too predictable and cliché. Fitch is, at first, very much a loner who seems to have trouble developing relationships within the rest of the precinct. However, as the show progresses, we get to gradually understand the dilemma he's facing and how he finally deals with a difficult situation that wraps up, fortunately, before the series' final episode.

The show has at least two storylines in each episode, sometimes three, as each team works on their current case. Finch, the veteran cop, is partnered with Detective Damon Washington (John Michael Hill), a rookie, and their relationship stumbles through a several episodes as Washington tries to figure out how to deal with Finch's quirky, isolationist personality. He never truly succeeds, but they do find a harmonious, though frustrating, way to work together. Both actors do a great job of developing their partnership so that it feels realistic and, by the end of the series, they've come to a workable understanding once Finch's situation is worked out.

Sergeant Jesse Longford (James McDaniel), the veteran cop who is close to retirement, is dealing with the sudden death of his wife and is partnered with Detective Vikram Mahajan (Shaun Majumder). Detective Ariana Sanchz (Natalie Martinez) and Detective John Stone (D.J. Controna) are partners who develop an intimate relationship that creates some sticky situations within the precinct. All three teams have their moments through out the series. Lieutenant Maureen Wilson, as played by Aisha Hinds, is the den mother of all three teams and fills out the ensemble cast as a strong, but caring leader as she jugglles raising her teenage daughter with the stress of police work.

The problem with a lot of cop shows is the plots become too predictable. No matter how much danger the lead characters have to face, they always win in the end, so much of the drama is mute. Therefore, it was a nice surprise when one of the main characters gets gunned down unexpectedly. No spoilers here. You'll have to watch the show to find out which one. This alone puts Detroit 1-8-7 a step ahead of many other similar types of shows.

Finally, for once a show that is set in a city is actually shot in that city. Detroit plays an integral part of the atmosphere, especially with the soundtrack and music selections. Having grown up across the river from Detroit, it's sad to see the city having so many problems. Detroit 1-8-7 makes you
realize that with all the crime and financial difficulties, there are still people in the city who care.

Unfortunately, quality shows like Detroit 1-8-7 all too often don't get high enough ratings to keep them on the air for very long. However, with 18 episodes, there's enough to enjoy what could have been a long term stalwart for the network if only they had given the show a bit more time and publicity to catch on with the TV viewing public.

Note: Reviewing cancelled TV shows that are available on DVD will be a regular feature.

Detroit 1-8-7  Trailer