Monthly Archives: April 2012

Utah Trip – The Road To SLC

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This is the third blog of the series on my recent trip to Salt Lake City, Utah from Ontario, California. Here I’ll deal with weather and the clearly distinct differences between California and Utah as they relate specifically to road travel (excluding speed limits, which I already discussed).

Southern California has a lot issues related to highway and interstate roadways. By way of example, let me point to the section of Interstate 15 north of Barstow to the agricultural inspection station in Yermo. That stretch of highway crosses over a number of dry washes, creeks, wadis, arroyos, whatever you want to call them. The whole area is considered a construction zone (with traffic fines doubled throughout) as the orange signs indicate. But as you approach one of the insignificant “bridges” over a dry creek bed you’ll see a sign that says, “Bump”. Stand by. Depending on what you’re driving, that “bump” could cost you some ground-effect bolt-on molding, it could launch you off the pavement or you might not feel anything at all.

For whatever reason, the spirits that possessed the highway workers deemed the asphalt over the concrete bridge should be removed. Okay, I’ll go with that. Well, I would have gone with that about a year ago but nothing seems to have changed. Heck, the signs have been there so long they’re blanching more white than orange. So I guess I’m not as enthusiastic about the repairs now then I might have been a year ago. Regardless, I’m certain that the highway repair people work hand-in-hand with the civil engineers that know all about road repair. Or maybe not.

I am not an engineer. I don’t know what’s right or wrong, acceptable or not, when it comes to road gradients, construction materials, surfacing or anything technically specific with respect to roadways. What I have picked up on, though, is a small amount of common sense.

When you’ve taken a couple of inches of asphalt roadway off to return it to the concrete base, adding a short asphalt ramp (or apron or “lip”) from the elevated road to the concrete and back again can’t be done at random. I’m certain someone with a slide rule and basic trigonometry knowledge can tell you that at 55 MPH you need an apron of “X” inches to go from the concrete to the asphalt with minimum vehicular damage. Sometimes you have a 12″ apron and you don’t feel a thing but a slight undulation. The next bump might only have 6″ of apron which gives you a fairly strong jolt and then the sensation that all of your car’s weight has been suspended for a split second before you nearly bottom-out. And then you have my favorite, the 3″ apron after-thought.

I swear the roadway workers use the exact same amount of asphalt for each apron they make. The difference is how it’s distributed. When you’re dealing with one of the after-thought aprons, they have to figure out how to get a predetermined volume of asphalt into a space 3″ wide. Since they don’t seem to want to make the apron wider, it goes taller. It’s like a freaking speed bump. It’s not uncommon to see bits of air dams, rigid mud flaps or large pieces of low-hanging bumpers or plastic ground effects along the side of the road at one of these killer sites. For me, at least, the whole apron concept seems rather random and hit-or-miss. Especially since no one really drives 55 MPH like the sign says. Except me.

Afraid of a double-the-fine speeding ticket and the cost of a front-end alignment, I’ll drive the posted speed limit when I can and when it’s safe. Sometimes I’ll even punch it up to 4 miles an hour faster than the posted limit. I am a speed demon.

Once you clear the Minneola off-ramp, it’s pretty much clear sailing into the downtown Las Vegas construction area. Even there the roadway itself isn’t bad at all, just the volume of traffic. When you leave Mesquite, Nevada and get into the Virgin River section of Arizona the roadway definitely needs to be resurfaced but it’s still fine. And then you get to St. George, Utah.

I encountered one “Bump” sign as I left St. George. Expecting the worst, I was on the alert. I passed over what amounted to nothing more than a tar bubble and did not see any more warning signs regarding a bump. Awesome. Utah had a totally different standard when it came to highway maintenance and I was thrilled to death. I didn’t encounter any pot holes, tire-eaters or launch ramps as I got closer to Provo. And then it started raining.

I had been driving for a number of hours by the time I got to Provo. I was tired and road-weary. It was getting dark, the rain was picking up, the city was the largest I’d encountered since St. George and more local drivers were entering the roadway.

Not familiar with the area at all, I reduced my speed from the posted 75 MPH and fell in line behind a line of cars headed in my direction. All I had to do was start looking for the off-ramp I needed to get me to my hotel in Salt Lake City. The rain got heavier.

The first thing I noticed after all the cars I was following left the freeway was the highway itself. In California, we have hard composite “dots” fixed onto the road. We jokingly refer to people who run over the dots (because they’re not paying attention while they’re texting) as “driving by Braille.” Even in the rain you can see the dots. At specific intervals, the dots are supplemented by a rectangular reflector that helps identify your lane. In areas that experience snowfall and use snowplows to clear the roadway, dots are not used because they’d be scraped off by the snowplow blade. The rectangular reflectors are still used, however, in a rather unique way: the roadway is contoured and the reflectors are recessed. When driving, you can still see the reflectors. When operating a snowplow, the reflectors are below the road surface and are safe from the blade. But this was Utah. And it was raining hard.

Without the aid of dots or reflectors, totally unfamiliar with the area, in the dark and in the rain, my next-best hope was to follow the white lane stripes on the road. Uh, no. Perhaps because it’s California and our line painters are all union or something, you can pretty easily see the reflective paint they’ve sprayed on layer upon layer of white stripes. The layers of paint on the stripes give the road a contour of their own. But I guess when a snowplow might scrape the surface clean you can’t rely on the “feel” of the road. No dot, no reflectors, no stripes, no one to follow. I was down to easily 55 MPH, thinking that I was experiencing the “driving lanes are just a suggestion” attitude of Afghan drivers. I was pissing off the locals like a boss.

I would know when a local was coming. Easily going the posted 75 MPH or better, they’d swerve out from behind me and be gone in an instant. Had I not been looking for my exit, I would have followed them. I know I was creating a traffic hazard. All I needed to do was find the exit for the highway I needed and I would be safe. All I needed was the correct highway. And then I realized the second major difference between California and Utah: state highway signs.

In California, a lot of our larger, high-volume highways have green and white signs. The background is green and the white logo and highway number are done with reflective paint and white reflectors. They’re fairly easy to see. Even many of the older highways have signs with white backgrounds and black numbering that are pretty easy to see. The highway logo looks like a fat triangle and the numbers use a non-serif font. But this was Utah.

The logo for a state highway in Utah is a beehive. California’s a triangle, Utah’s a beehive: I’m okay with that. Except when it’s raining and dark, I don’t know how far it is to the correct exit and I’m creating a traffic hazard. Then the beehive looks like a pile of dog crap. Inside that pile of dog crap I’m supposed to make out the numbers for the highway I need. Great. It’s raining and the idea of using any type of reflective materials in the construction of the road sign completely escaped the drawing board phase of their highway safety commission. You can’t see the freaking numbers in the middle of the dog crap until you’re already under the sign, which means you missed the exit by about 50 feet.

Having caught a glimpse of the correct exit I needed, I knew it was only a couple of miles down the road. I could not take my eyes off the road to glance at the odometer on the rental car I had as it would have taken me precious moments just to remember where the odometer was in the first place. Since I couldn’t do the odometer/trip meter countdown to the exit I chose to base my freeway departure on time. The time would be a guestimate, however, since I didn’t want to run the risk of looking at the digital clock. So I started counting. Two miles, two minutes, no problem.

Basically, in order for you to go two miles in two minutes you have to maintain a constant speed of 60 MPH. If you go less than 60 MPH, you won’t go two miles. You’ll get off at the exit BEFORE the exit you need and wind up all by yourself on a transition road about 50 feet above the highway wondering where in the heck you are. But that’s simple enough, you just take the next off-ramp and get your bearings. Unless that off-ramp is 900th Street.

I will abbreviate this long story by telling you that only because of my daughter and her iPhone was I able to finally make it to my room. Well, my daughter and the night clerk at the hotel. Nothing my daughter did could have prepared me for the heavy construction detours around the hotel. Even the hotel clerk had to guide me in not by streets and cardinal directions but by landmarks and flashing barricade lights. Seriously. “When you get to the Radisson, turn right at the yellow flashing lights and then go straight through the flashing red lights.”

So, when I’m in charge, the people responsible for maintaining the condition of Utah’s roads will be supplemented by the people responsible for creating the signage for California’s roads. But don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) responsible for actually posting the highway signs. If they can’t get Route 66 right, who knows what they’d do.

If you plan on driving anywhere between Salt Lake City and south of Provo, just be aware that the whole Interstate 15 area is a huge construction site. I didn’t see it on the way to Salt Lake City because I was locked in behind a row a cars in the dark and the rain. You’d never know it, though, because it was smooth sailing all the way. Those guys know how to build a road. Except for the dots. And the reflectors. And the white stripes. Other than that, it was awesome.

Gumdrops

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The Easter season is here and it’s time for retailers to dust off their old inventory of Halloween, Christmas and Valentine’s Day candy for the last of the sugar-laced holidays.

For candies with some staying power, like lollipops, jelly beans and gumdrops, they can’t really mold the candies in a specific holiday’s colors; they have to stick to the tried-and-true standards: green, yellow, orange, et cetera. Fast-movers like M & Ms can go seasonal with lavender and white and not fear that a retailer will still have them on the shelf come next Halloween. But today my focus is on gumdrops.

Sitting at my desk this morning waiting for the coffee to brew, I had a craving for gumdrops. Why? Who knows. Maybe because I haven’t had any in years. I’ve had jelly beans, Skittles, Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike’s and things of that nature, but I haven’t had gumdrops for quite some time. This may seem odd, but I remember I like sucking on gumdrops. On a recent trip to Arizona, I sucked on Hot Tamales. Have you ever done that? What a huge disappointment. Once the fire-red coating is gone you’re left with a translucent rod of tasteless hard gel. Suck the coating off a jelly bean and it essentially becomes a spoonful of gritty jam. Gumdrops are different.

If you have an oral fixation, gumdrops are the best. You can bite them, chew them, suck them, mash them with your tongue, whatever. Unlike M & Ms, Nerds or Red Hots, you can’t stick a handful of them in your mouth and “wing it.” One, maybe two, gumdrops and you’re set for a while. That may be why they have much longer staying power than some of the other goodies out there. But I’m speaking from ancient history, not recent experience.

I realized that in lieu of gumdrops I’ve substituted a chew stick. You might call it a plastic coffee stirrer, but to me it’s a chew stick. I don’t smoke so the stick isn’t a substitute for that activity. My favorites are the single-barrel, small caliber brown or red sticks. I’ll pass on the wood (too utilitarian) and the double-barreled hard black ones. Sometimes I’ll go for a larger caliber paper-wrapped stick from an AM/PM, but those are too much like straws. Straws are not chew sticks: they’re straws.

When not in use, I can secure a chew stick in my shirt pocket. I guess I’ll have to give the edge to the chew stick over the gumdrop in that category. If I’m well into a good “chaw” while working out some Boolean logic on an Excel spreadsheet and the phone rings, I can reach for the phone and remove the chew stick in one deft movement. You can’t do that with a gumdrop. If I had a gumdrop in my mouth I’d probably just let the phone ring. Priorities, you know.

Chew sticks have a lifespan and I guess “chew” would be a misnomer. I like to bite down just enough to feel the plastic give. Rotate the stick 12-1/2 degrees, bite down slightly and it’ll give again. Repeat for hours. I don’t know how to describe it. I have rules. I never bite all the way down because the stick has to retain its round shape. Sometimes I’ll inhale through it just because, but I never exhale through it–it’s not a snorkel. I only use one half of the stick because my fingers have been touching the other half while I’ve been rotating it around. I’ll flavor the stick by stirring my coffee (a novel concept) but if the coffee’s gone and the stick has lost its flavor, I toss it. That’s not true. If I know I’ll be having coffee later, I’ll tuck it in my shirt pocket (chew-side down, always) until I get a refill. Since I drink coffee all day, it’s usually not that long before I refill and continue. But what about the gumdrops?

Gumdrops don’t really have a lifespan because you can move from one to the other almost immediately. Another bonus: each one has its own flavor. Seriously, I love the flavor of coffee but it gets old after a while. If you get tired of the gumdrop you’re working on now you can take it out of your mouth and go to another one. If you’ve sucked a gumdrop for a while, you can bite it lightly and shape it. Come on, I’m not the only one that does this. If you bite it too hard you’ll ruin it. Bite it just enough and you can make it into a ball or see how long you can make it, like a piece of chewing gum. You know exactly what I’m talking about.

I prefer sucking on gumdrops because they get stuck in my teeth when I chew. You know, it could be that the longer you suck on them the stickier they get and that’s why I don’t get them anymore. I don’t remember. I’m certain it was a specific event that led to the gumdrop embargo/boycott, whatever, but I don’t remember what it was. All I know is that today I really want a gumdrop and I know I won’t get one. I won’t even see one. In fact, the truth is I don’t remember the last time I saw a real gumdrop. I’ve seen pictures of them, but it’s honestly been years since I’ve laid eyes on a real gumdrop, let alone enjoyed one.

Since I have a lot of work to do today the local CVS staff can rest assured I won’t be assaulting their facility looking to swoop in and take their cache of gumdrops. Maybe it’s the season or maybe I had a sudden sugar attack but my desire specifically for a gumdrop or two today went through the roof. Knowing me and my unwillingness to actually go out and get one I guess I’ll add one more packet of sweetener to my coffee and keep chewing on the chew stick.

But I really want a gumdrop.

Utah Trip – Speed Limits

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This is the second post in my series involving my trip from Ontario, California to Ogden, Utah.

In my very best Jerry Seinfeld-ish voice I have to ask, “What’s the deal with speed limits?” By my own admission, I’m happy to keep my speedometer at or not more than four miles above the posted speed limit when it’s safe to do so. I hate speeding. Why? I can’t afford the ticket. I’m not afraid of going fast, I just can’t afford it. When I was in the Army at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Adam Silverman would drive his turbo-charged Merkur XR4Ti to Tucson at better than 100 MPH so we could have more time to screw around and make fun of the Air Force guys from Davis-Monthan. My personal best, longest duration land speed record was 120 MPH on my Honda Interceptor because I was pissed off about something (a very, very stupid reason to drive fast). Anyway, it’s not the speed or the death I’m afraid of, it’s the cost. So I don’t speed.

Touring around my local freeways and interstates you’ll see signs allowing you to drive up to 65 MPH. The signs don’t really mean anything, though, because you’re usually locked in behind an idiot in a beat-up Nissan Sentra doing 50 MPH while the guy in the BMW next to you chats on his cell phone, oblivious to anything other than he’s going with the flow of traffic. Semi-trucks and vehicles pulling trailers in California are limited by law to 55 MPH. So, you’ve got the very slow traffic on the right side of the road and, when it’s open, traffic moving at better than 80 MPH in the left lane. I don’t know how many accidents are caused by cell phone texting shit heads trying to decelerate from 80 MPH in the fast lane to less than 50 MPH, crossing four lanes of traffic in a single motion, all so they can exit at the next turn-off. This is a case for my concept of summary executions for idiot drivers by Predator drones but it’s not the focus of this post.

North of Victorville, California, the speed limits become very generous at 70 MPH on Interstate 15. Semi-trucks and vehicles pulling trailers are still limited to 55 MPH. So, since it’s a two-lane freeway, watching the traffic in front of you is like watching a giant Slinky. You go into the left lane, punch it to 80 MPH to pass the guy in the Smart Car and then back it off to 75 MPH and return to the right lane. Oh, crap. A semi-truck. Back into the left lane for a quick pass and then return to the right lane. But it’s not just you. Everyone’s doing the same thing. Slinky, leap frog, whatever you want to call it, it’s fun to watch. Why? Because inevitably, one idiot will find another.

As you roll down the highway at a comfortable 75 MPH you see a semi-truck in the distance you know you’re going to have to pass. A quick look out your driver’s side mirror tells you someone is coming up in the fast lane rather quickly so you’ll need to wait a second before you think about passing the semi. You give the speed demon a couple of seconds and realize he wasn’t driving as fast as you thought. Worse, it’s a Cadillac. There’s no effing way you’re going to let a ghetto-sled Cadillac pass your finely-tuned piece of German engineering, so you accelerate to get in front of the Caddy and pass the semi.

But the Caddy’s on to you. All he has to do is push it just a little bit more (since he already has the speed and position advantage) and he’s effectively used the semi to block your forward movement while he cuts off your lateral movement. The classic “hammer and anvil” tactic. Used for centuries by fighting forces around the world, its brutal effectiveness most recently broadcast to the world by General Norman Schwarzkopf’s ground forces during Desert Storm. Awesome.

Anyway, you’re trapped. Worse, the Caddy brought a whole herd of people with him. All of them are now streaming around you and won’t let you in. You’re blocked and locked behind the semi until the procession of cars has passed. Then you join them as “Tail End Charlie.” But you want revenge. You and everyone in front of you to whom the Caddy did exactly the same maneuver. Everyone’s gunning to pass the Caddy. The first guy makes it. Success! Too bad he can’t tell you the guy driving the Cadillac is really a seventy year-old man who honestly had no concept that his driving had pissed off two miles of cars behind him. But that doesn’t matter because all of a sudden a highway patrol vehicle appears at the top of the next on-ramp. Now you’ll never have the chance to pass that bastard, reestablish your superiority and confirm once and for all that YOUR car is better than HIS car. Rat Freaking Bastard. But I digress.

North of the Nevada Interstate construction zone known as Las Vegas, the speed limit goes to 75 MPH. The speed limit didn’t matter, though, as I didn’t see a single highway patrol vehicle between Primm and Mesquite. Then I was in Arizona.

Arizona maintained the 75 MPH speed limit until you arrived at the Virgin River. The speed limit dropped to 60 MPH while you wound around the canyon. You’re only in Arizona for about 35 miles before you enter St. George, Utah.

Utah, I laugh in your general direction. The I-15 in California and Arizona had some of the worst pot holes, road damage and general disrepair I’ve ever seen. Shortly after leaving St. George I saw a warning sign for “Road Damage Ahead”. I was expecting an RV-swallowing pot hole with the remains of the countless tires it had destroyed strewn around it. What did I see? Nothing I would count as road damage, unless you meant that little bump where the asphalt met the concrete of an overpass. Was that it? I didn’t know. I moved on.

The speed limit continued to be 75 MPH. It was only then that I noticed semi-trucks and vehicles pulling trailers were no longer limited to 55 MPH. I don’t know when that requirement ended but it sure as heck didn’t exist in Utah. I had my cruise control set to 79 MPH and I was passed by people pulling trailers that were fishtailing down the freeway. The funniest was being passed by a guy pulling a U-Haul trailer that had a stencil you could clearly read that said, “Trailer Speed Limit 55 MPH”.

At this point I’m hours into my driving experience when I see the lights of a law enforcement vehicle ahead pulling someone over. In California, the knee-jerk reaction is to slow down. In Utah, I think the rule of thumb is that since the highway patrol has “bagged” one, everyone can speed up. I had reduced my speed to 75 MPH and pulled over into the left lane to give the patrolman room on the right (which is the law, as reminded by the billboards every five miles or so). I must have been the only idiot on the road. With the highway patrolman right-stinking-there, people were pulling into the slow lane and accelerating to pass me. Very odd. And then I saw the highway patrol car.

Back in the eighties (I don’t know about now), the California Highway Patrol used to operate Cameros on some freeways. It reminded me of the first Mad Max movie where the Aussies had Pursuit and Interceptor cars. Utah’s keeping the dream alive. A very, very nice Mustang GT with a really cool sky blue paint job with a yellow racing stripe had pulled someone over. Later, similarly painted Dodge Challengers and more Mustang GTs enforced the speed limit law along the interstate. Kind of.

Some areas of Utah had a sign that said something to the effect of, “Speed limit test area.” The speed limit increased from 75 MPH to 80 MPH, but I think that was just a recommendation. I put my cruise control on 84 MPH and was left in the dust by anything with two wheels or more. And I don’t mean they crept up behind me and took a minute to pass. This was full-on autobahn driving at its best. Eventually, a 75 MPH sign would reappear along with the highway patrol.

Between the start of the 80 MPH signs and the next 75 MPH sign you couldn’t find a highway patrolman to save your life. But within a mile or two of the “reduced” speed back to 75 MPH? Watch your ass. So, finally, I return to my initial question, “What’s the deal with speed limits?”

Why can I go 90 MPH or better in an 80 MPH zone but get popped for going 80 MPH in a 75 MPH zone? Does Utah have a “text-type” code? Perhaps I read the sign incorrectly. Work with me on this. You know how a colon and a right parenthetical mark make a smiley face like this 🙂 and a colon and an upper-case “p” make a person sticking their tongue out at you like this 😛 ? Maybe instead of reading as an eight and a zero, I wonder if they’re actually symbols that represent speed. You know, the eight really represents your eye sockets and the zero represents your open mouth unable to close because of the wind speed. Look at it again: 80 . Do you see it? If someone died because they were going to fast, would the sign look like this 8P ? If they were driving angry, would it look like this >80 ? A uni-brow speed-driver’s sign would look like this |80 ?

I don’t know. I don’t speak leet key and I really don’t think the Utah Highway Patrol promotes leet key or text symbol traffic signs. But it’s Utah. What do I know?

Utah Trip – The Primm Experience

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As previously announced on this blog, I do not watch television nor do I listen to the radio. I stream NetFlix almost exclusively (no commercials) and stream old time radio programs via the Internet if I want to listen to the radio. This post will cover the first and the last legs of my recent trip from Ontario, California to Ogden, Utah.

I left the Ontario International Airport area on the morning of Wednesday, March 28th. A few hours later I was passing the California / Nevada state line in Primm, Nevada. I saw a rather puzzling sight on the east side of the freeway.

As I headed out of the dry lake bed and into Primm, I noticed there were a lot of people–hundreds of people–standing at the south side of the fashion outlet mall. I got closer and realized that there was an order to the madness: The people were standing in a line. My first thought was that some studio had put out a casting call and this is where they were conducting auditions.

If you are not familiar with the location, Primm, Nevada (aka State Line) is the first town you encounter after you leave Baker, California (home of the world’s tallest thermometer) northbound on Interstate 15. It has three casinos, one of which (Buffalo Bill’s) has a high-thrill roller coaster that winds its way through the casino itself. Anyway, the southeast side of Primm has a casino with a huge factory outlet mall.

The mall’s parking lot includes a couple of gas stations, a McDonald’s, a Taco Bell, a Greek Restaurant and a liquor store. The liquor store is the farthest southern point of the whole paved area. Anyway, this place had a line of people coming out the door, circling the building, snaking through the parking lot and continuing inside the doors of the mall. Again, hundreds and hundreds of people were in line. Why? I had no idea, nor did I care. I don’t gamble.

That was Wednesday. I returned from Ogden, Utah on Friday, March 30th and I made the critically bad decision to stop for gas at Primm and maybe grab a bite to eat. Not thinking, I opted for the Texaco station on the southeast side of the freeway by the McDonald’s and the fashion mall. I chose poorly.

Once locked into the parking lot traffic I could not escape. I knew I had made an error in judgment and wanted nothing more than to escape from the traffic nightmare in which I found myself and head to the Chevron on the west side of the interstate. But I couldn’t. I finally made it to Texaco and filled up. I noticed the little liquor store had even more traffic on Friday than it had on Wednesday. The lines were HUGE! Why? Once again, I had no idea nor did I care. I figured what I was seeing was a flood of people returning from their Southern California spring break and for whatever reason, that liquor store was important as the first one in Nevada.

Anyway, when I finally left Primm headed south-bound on the 15 again, I noticed the traffic: bumper-to-bumper. I didn’t see any accidents, highway patrol, chupacabras or armadillos, just traffic. Lots and lots of bumper-to-bumper traffic, all headed north, all exiting at Primm. I passed Zzyzx Road doing the speed limit. The north side was still bumper-to-bumper. In fact, it remained bumper-to-bumper all the way from BEFORE Baker! That’s over 50 miles! Clearly, something was happening.

It was then I decided to remove the boxed set of Sam Spade, Private Detective CDs I’d been listening to since Ogden and tune into the radio. Huh. Apparently, there was some huge half-a-billion dollar plus lottery happening of which I was unaware. The drawing didn’t matter to me at all. As I indicated earlier, I don’t gamble. But I did some research into what the fuss was over that seemingly insignificant liquor store.

I was surprised to learn that the liquor store isn’t really in the mall’s parking lot, it’s across the street. In fact, the liquor store isn’t really in Primm, nor is it in Nevada at all. It’s in a little slice of heaven all by itself with a street address in Nipton, California. Its parking lot is literally on the border between California and Nevada; the street is the physical state border. The “liquor store” is actually a well-known Mega-Millions Lottery retailer in California. The place: Terrible’s Lotto Sales. I hear it’s more like a 7-11 than a liquor store with the focus on California Lottery sales of quick-picks and scratchers. I also understand it’s *THE* place to go if you live in sourthern Nevada and want to play the California lottery.

I read an article from another blogger who said she stood in line for three hours to get her Mega-Millions tickets and that was through the automated machines! The person-to-person quick picks took even longer. Who would do that? Gamblers, apparently. I know next to nothing about the lottery system but it seems to me that if the jackpot is only one million dollars, fewer people play so your odds of winning go up. The higher the jackpot the more players so your odds go down. I think I’d rather play when the lottery is not as loaded as the most-recent game. I know for certain I wouldn’t waste my time driving to Primm if it was only to buy a ticket. I’d take my chances at the local Qwik-E-Mart.

Hunger Games

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My son and I went to see Hunger Games today. Bottom Line: I enjoyed the movie although I was close to flat-lining it for a while. Watched from a movie theater of Twilight-loving teenage girls, I can see it has its place at the top of a new genre depicting young female action heroes.

I knew I was in trouble when the entire row of girls in front of us, seriously, all of them, started gushing from the very first moment something about Twilight came on in the previews. I have no idea what it was. It could have been the font used, the music, the topography, something. They knew what was happening before anyone else in the theater. The girl on the far left started talking about the movie coming out in December well before any recognizable character from the movie appeared on-screen. When the preview revealed the movie would release in November, the entire row of girls became giddy and overcome with emotion that Twilight was being released sooner than they thought. It was a very moving moment for them. And I should have known I was in trouble.

I will try hard not to ruin the movie, but I have two major complaints. If I recall correctly, the districts send to the capital tributes aged between 12 and 18. That’s a huge gap. Physically, emotionally and experience-wise, that’s huge. If I were in charge we’d narrow the age range down a bit, like 12-14, 14-16, 16-18. My thought is that just about any 18 year old will wipe the floor with any 12 year old. But that’s just me.

Second, if you can create something out of nothing (i.e. a hologram becoming real), why can it kill me but I can’t kill it? For example, if you create fish in a lake simply because your technology allows it, why can’t I catch and eat them? If you create a sheep in a field, how is it possible that sheep might attack and kill me but my weapons are seemingly harmless against it? That bothered me. Not so much the playing God part but the fact that the very weapons with which I can cut down trees, decimate competitors and a number of other “real” tasks have no impact on other creations.

The story centers on one girl’s challenges during the Hunger Games that I won’t get into except for how it relates to every teenage girl in the theater. This is a girl’s movie. It’s not a romantic “chick flick.” People die. Kids die. Kids kill kids. It is what it is. But you cannot escape this is a girl’s movie.

From the beginning, you see the beautiful young girl being strong, decisive and loving in an almost maternal role. She transitions to a strong, independent, skilled hunter as easily as walking out her front door. Then she’s a strong, independent, desirable young woman with some hunky buff dude putting the moves on her. We know the guy is hunky not because he reminds me a lot of myself at that age (okay, maybe not) but because every teenage girl in the theater let out some type of audible “oohh” or “ahhh” when he appeared on-screen.

So then the girl briefly becomes a victim of circumstance but then rises above to once again become the strong, independent young woman. Yadda, yadda, yadda and blah, blah, blah, she keeps the strong and independent mantle during the Games but is rotated through the maternal, hunter, desirable, victim persona throughout the movie.

At one point she’s helping another hunky dude with an issue. She gives him a kiss that the first hunky guy happens to see on TV. I kid you not, every girl in the theater moaned an “oowww” when that happened. They couldn’t have planned it better if they had scripted the Rocky Horror Picture Show audience participation manual. All of them, in unison, “oowww.” I think my son and I pissed off the girls in front of us because we really did laugh out loud.

So all the theater girls are rooting for the heroine and hunky guy number two. There is a hunky guy number three but he’s too much of an a-hole to let his looks give him a pass. We know this because the girl in front of me told the girl next to her that he was too much of a jerk for Katness (the heroine) to “hook-up with.” He didn’t get any “oohhs, ahhhs or oowwws” from any of the girls until near the end when they all cheered him.

The heroine does what she has to do and correctly starts thinking about what’s going to happen to her next. Then hunky guy number one re-appears on the scene. Once again, the theater erupted in a series of “oowwws” from all the girls. What’s Katness going to do? Then the movie ends. That by itself was awesome. It totally pissed off at least the row of girls in front of me. They had no closure and let it be known they were not happy with the ending.

I don’t know exactly what they were looking for, but it’s a movie. It’s a movie based on a book. If you didn’t like the book’s ending, did you think the movie’s would be different? If you didn’t like the movie’s ending, did you read the book? Don’t sit there and start talking crap about the movie you just spent all afternoon gushing over just to complain that it’s not fair you don’t know what happens to Katness next. Did you scream at the Twilight movies?

Anyway, I liked the movie. Again, no nudity and no swearing, so it’s okay for younger kids. Well, if you get past the whole kids-killing-kids premise. But even that was fairly sterile. Most of the death was implied rather than gruesomely displayed. If you see the movie and you’re not a 12-17 year old girl, you might really like it. If you’re a 12-17 year old girl, prepare to have your heart torn from you as you’re left wondering how Katness will end the movie. If you’re a 12-17 year old boy, don’t laugh at your date when she swoons over the hunky dudes.

Enjoy.