The Essential Steven Spielberg

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… and incidentally why he’s so popular:

Spielberg is one of the greatest screen stylists in history, but he is a deeply conventional in his thinking. He has the imagination of a white suburban baby boomer who grew up wholly enamored of America’s civic mythology, where figures like Abraham Lincoln (like the citizen soldiers of the Second World War) loom like gods.

Read the rest of the review; it’s pretty good.

Resolutions for the coming year

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How’s that for an unoriginal title. Well I’m all out of fancy titles. This is just going to be a list of all the things I need or want to do in the near or far future. I’ve already done two of them: cleared out my Gmail (where my main email is) and finally shut down my old hosted blog, Spleenville.com. Now for the rest:

  • De-clutter. I tend to get seriously cluttered with crap, and then go on big tossing-out sprees. It’s time for another, but this one is going to (I hope) be more methodical than “I can’t stand everything send it all to Goodwill!” Obviously some things will have to go to the trash instead.
  • Put a real curtain rod up and get some decent curtains. It’s not a priority but the cheap one I sort of rigged up is not satisfactory. I’m going to have to move furniture, get the ladder, probably do a bit of hammering and screwdriving.
  • Refurbish my wardrobe. Most of my stuff is cheap or old, and it’s all starting to look rather worn out. Time to seriously consider a minimal, simple set of outfits that are well-made enough to last a while. That will probably take more money than I’m used to spending, so this will probably have to wait a while.
  • Finally figure out where I want to roost on the internet. I have several sites scattered all over, and the big mess that is the hosted stuff. I need to get my act together and decide what my “presence on the internet” will consist of. I do like blogging, and would like to be able to blog. I’m tired of certain situations and setups, though, and the hosted site in particular is like an odoriferous basement apartment that I’ve lived in way too long.
  • Buy a real mattress and bed. I like a simple platform bed, but they are pricey. But I need something sturdy and non-moving so I can get a good night’s sleep. I may wait on this, though. I don’t really feel like getting something so permanent right now. (Currently I have a futon on top of a crappy old guest cot mattress on a cheap folding metal frame. I was sleeping on the floor but I have too much stuff around me for that to be comfortable.)
  • Go through my belongings and start packing anything I don’t currently use, or just get rid of what I really don’t want. I think that means good-bye to the television. I haven’t used it in two years or something.
  • Trade in my all-in-one printer-scanner-copier for a compact laser printer. I hardly ever use the all-in-one: aside from a few photos I should scan I’m mostly done with that, I never use the copier, and I hardly ever use the printer because the inkjet cartridges get used up so fast. I really only want to print text (who prints websites any more?), everything else goes on the internet or the hard drives of one of my computers. Right? Right?
  • When it comes to that… gather together all my scattered digital photos and cram them all into one place, like on a flash drive or something. And then start figuring out what to do with my film photos. Buy negative sleeves and notebooks? Toss the prints? I do have that cheapass film scanner I got, which does an okay job but I can send out for any prints I want professionally done, so… might eventually get rid of the film scanner, it’s not been used all that much.
  • Decide what to do about that camera collection I amassed. I can junk the junkie point-and-shoots, or maybe just pack them away for I don’t know, reasons. I already have half of them packed away. Also I need to decide if I’m going to keep on shooting odd-sized film (110, 127, 120) or just stick w/ 35mm. I will probably keep using 120 as the Holga was quite an investment, I love the photos and the huge negatives, and it’s still not that expensive. I do like 127 film though. And the new availability of 110 is fun. Okay I guess I’ve answered my question there. But I will definitely not be buying any more APS film. The cameras are cute and easy to use, but the photos aren’t of so great a quality to put up with the extra expense and trouble (fewer and fewer places are willing to develop it). I’ll just finish up what I’ve got.
  • Get my books in order. That will mean packing most of them away.
  • Get my room in order in general. See “de-clutter” above.
  • Get my finances in order. The ongoing saga.
  • Actually blog.
  • Actually write.

Okay, that’s all for now. I might update this post if I think of more things.

Surfacing

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Whoops didn’t mean to neglect the site. (Ha ha, of course I meant to neglect it.) It’s just that I’ve been “busy.” Health matters are in a holding pattern. The cat’s doing well on her meds. Work hours are incredible and not in a good way (but I’m told this will change soon, yay, also Thanksgiving is coming up and I’m getting a bit of time off, don’t want to say how much so the Evil Restful Holiday Destroying Fairies don’t get wind of it), and, well, winter is approaching like a train made of slush and hellwinds.

I got a new phone (no big deal, just a slight upgrade to one with a tiny QWERTY keyboard, not a smartphone, oh no, we’re holding out until the last minute on that) and tried to set up posting to this blog, but for some reason everything I sent vanished into WordPress.com purgatory except for one short text post that went to my Gmail but not here. Even the link didn’t work. I can text to Blogger but it won’t accept photos so far. So that’s how things are going and I’m running out of ideas and I need to do a load of laundry.