Way too Late at the Movies: A Man Could Get Killed

Stumbled across a James Garner move from 1966 on the YouTubes tonight: "A Man Could Get Killed." It's your standard mistaken identity story where Garner, a representative of a New York bank sent to Portugal to pursue joint ventures for hydroelectricity development is mistaken for a spy searching to break an industrial diamond smuggling ring.

It's directed by Ronald Neame, who also directed The Poseidon Adventure. But no swaying camera motion because Irwin Allen wasn't involved.

It was odd to me that the film contained snatches of "Strangers in the Night," a popular song of the time -- and then I read it's the film that introduced the song. So it makes more sense now.

It's an okay film. Typical of the era, where it was meant to be a lot of things -- a comedy, a drama, etc., and never really succeeds fully at anything.

James Garner seems to have come into his befuddled everyman persona pretty early. He's the highlight of the film in my book, though the old European cars, particularly an Opel, Peugeot that would make Columbo happy, and a 2CV, are also worthy of billing.

Sandra Dee is also in this film, though I had to look at the Wikipedia page to learn that. I don't really know a lot of stars from this era.

James Garner pulling the James Garner face.

'Ee's Drinking Sodie Pop!

A photo of our oldest, at scout camp, drinking a can of soda.

Unusual because he NEVER drinks soda.

"I wanted to see what the fuss is all about," he says. He reports he likes the flavor but is still not a fan of the carbonation.

There it Is

This morning, some texts:

Now, I'm already looking at the out of Idaho area code. But as cell numbers are portable and have been for years, it's not uncommon to get calls or texts from numbers that ain't local to Idaho.

Also, we do have dogs. We have neighbors who love to complain about things like lights and imaginary nonsense. So I'm a little sensitive to this situation.

But I'm also skeptical. It's true our dogs are indoor dogs and don't spend the night outside.

So it went on:

They did send a video.

I was hesitant to click on it. but I did.

It certainly did include a dog barking at night. But there was an outdoor fireplace in the video that I did not recognize as belonging to anyone close enough to be bothered by a barking dog. I spend enough time looking at my own property on Google Maps to know. Now, I know the info there isn't 100% up-to-date, but another red flag.

Still, I went on:

Tiburon. I Googled it, and it appears to be a chi-chi suburb of San Francisco, which matches with the out-of-Idaho area code. So another red flag. But the conversation was winding down.

Until: There it is.

Yeah. Softening me up for the kill. I'm sure had the conversation gone on longer, it would have resulted in a scam. Maybe money. Maybe blackmail over naughty photos. You never know.

And I won't either. Immediately blocked and reported as spam.

And I didn't even feel bad about it.

Who's Suing Me?

 

Someone attached a sheaf of papers to our front door this morning. The wind keeps catching them and our Ring camera picks up the motion. I've had like a hundred notifications today on my phone.

Turns out it was a notice from the city on a delayed chip seal project in the neighborhood.

My Facebook friends, of course, are feeding my paranoid nature.

I Miss WordPerfect . . .

So, here's a conundrum maybe someone else in the universe has encountered:

We use Microsoft Word at work for word processing. Nothing unusual there.

Our record documents are Word documents converted to PDF via Adobe. Again, nothing unusual there.

But three times in the last two weeks, we've seen the PDF version of the document mess up something in Word -- and since the PDF is the record version, we have to revise the document so it can be used. Fortunately, two of the three instances I've mentioned got caught at the revision phase, so they haven't gone live yet.

What's odd is that in Word, everything appears hunky-dory. It's only in the rendering that things get messed up. I can't go into the details, but what we see is step numbering and cross references getting messed up.

I've looked on the Internet, of course, for others experiencing the same problem. And as with many things on the Internet, I'm able to find people who are experiencing other Word to PDF problems, but nothing exactly like what we're seeing.

So, anyone within the sound of my voice seeing similar problems? And more importantly, what did you do to fix them?

Don't Push the Red Button or Pull the Dangly Cord

From Stephen Ambrose's essay "Struggle for Vicksburg: The Battles and Siege that Decided the Civil War."

Cocksure no doubt.

The text:

The Indiana and the Illinois units came over the barricade north of the railroad and captured a gun. Private James S. Adkins of the 33rd Illinois, exhilarated by the bloodless victory, leaped astride the gun tube, waved his elbows up and down at his sides, and crowed like a rooster. Then, curious, he tugged at the lanyard. The gun went off, hurling a shell close over the heads of the units coming up in support, and bucking Adkins head over heels into the dirt. Miraculously, no one was hurt.

Gen X/Boomer Tendencies

Presenting a Gen X/Boomer tendency here.

Instagram confuses me. I don't understand the interface. I get notifications on my phone that my friends are posting - even sending me messages - and when I can find the app on my damn phone I open it and I get lost. I can't find the posts or messages my friends are sending me.

Too old, yes. I remember when they invented chocolate. Sweet, sweet chocolate . . .

I should remind my readers: As Gen X, I can adapt to new technology as well as any Millennial, but I reserve the right to be cranky about it like my Boomer ancestors.

90s Maigret Pleased, 2020s Maigret Curious

The last few days I've enjoyed watching an old Grenada Television show from the 1990s on YouTube -- starring Michael Gambon as Chief Inspector Maigret of the Paris police.

This chief inspector is far from the bumbling of Inspector Clouseau. The stories are based on novels written in the 1950s by French author Georges Simenon. I've read a few (in the original French, because that's how I found them in one of the missionary apartments I stayed in). They're wonderfully told, tight mysteries that really capture the feel of old Paris.

I'm intrigued that the stories have been retold more recently with Rowan Atkinson in the titular role; I'd love to see a few of those.

The Bacheloring

So it begins: The Bacheloring.

Michelle has been to camp off and on for a month now, but after a two-week break the whole family sans Lexi are headed to camp, even Isaac, who we thought wouldn't be going this year.

Michelle's up there as Cope and Climbing Director.

Liam is up there working in Nature and helping out with Trail to Eagle and the Astronomy Merit Badge.

Isaac, after a rough go of not really being welcomed back due to reasons, is going back as a commissioner, which thrilled him to no end because he's sick of working at Reed's Dairy and needed one more fling before he starts is mission in mid-August.

That leaves me and the dogs all alone. ALONE.

But I don't want to be alone. I'm no good on my own.

Take today: After church, I made dinner for myself. That's not so bad, because I only have to worry about what I want for dinner. But since then . . . I've taken a nap. I've played a video game. I've watched some YouTube. And that's about all I'll be doing for the next few weeks. At least I don't have to teach Sunday School next weekend.

I have a lot of yard work lined up for the next few weeks, though. Going to finish getting all the sticker weeds out of the garden, going to finish splitting the wood from the chopped down pine tree, and do some general cleanup in that area. Also have to mow lawns. And rebuild the rail I put on the back porch last weekend because the one that's there is a bit too short. But that'll be simpler since I've got the wood for it already and a general path forward on what the rail will look like.

Fun stuff. Whee.

Pardon Me, Google?

So I'm uploading a photo to this blog as I always do, and suddenly Google is asking me to sign into my Google account.

You know, the Google account I was already signed into so I could post something to my blog.

Why ya gotta be this way?