One thing after another...

That, according to geek humor, is what time does to keep things from happening all at the same time.

"Mah-velous," to quote an alter ago of Billy Crystal.

I managed to get the finished translation off to the client this morning, but then everything sort of lined up to make sure today would be largely a work-free day.

Then again, the night is young.

So, what's been happening?

Last night, I watched Triumph of the Will, by the late Leni Riefenstahl. I had ordered it through Netflix at the same time as the pair of Soviet films I mentioned a few posts back. Triumph is reputed to be a masterful work of propaganda, highlighting the events of the 1934 Nazi party congress in Nurenberg, Germany.

I got bored about 2/3 of the way through the film, concluding that it was basically a "what we did during our visit to Nurenberg" story, except on steroids. I found myself listening to the voices of various Nazi bigwigs, as they uttered homilies about Germany, and The People, and The Party. I found myself listening to the voice of Adolf Hitler and wondering, what was it in that voice that made people want to do his bidding? The subtitles, perhaps, filtered out some of the power of his oratory, but even as I tried simply to factor in the sound of his voice, I felt... nothing. (This, as compared to some reviewers on Netflix who found themselves drawn into the web that Riefenstahl wove.)

One item that did catch my attention was something Hitler said to a mass assembly of what appeared to be laborers in national service to the country (who wore uniforms and executed a snappy "right-shoulder spade!"). Quoting the subtitles:

The whole nation passes through your school. There will come a time when no German can be admitted into the community of the people until he has first become a member of your group!

Let's hear it for national service.

* * *The installer came by to bring Dish Network television to the house today. As he was installing the new dish (which has to hit two satellites, I'm told, to bring me the full benefit of the service), I called DirecTV to cancel my account. The drone I spoke to asked me the usual "why are you doing this" question and like a dummy, I told him I didn't want the service any more. He then tried to offer me ways to stay a DirecTV customer, to which I said, "No, I want to cancel my account."

He then tries to offer me ways to stay a DirecTV customer (notice the repetition?), to which I said, "What part of 'I want to cancel my account' didn't you understand?" To which he replies that he's only doing his job. I say okay, please cancel me.

Then he tries to offer me ways to stay a DirecTV customer, and I get a little upset. I consider hanging up and calling back, and telling the new drone that I'm canceling my account because God has revealed to me that television is an instrument of the devil, just to see how that approach works, but the one I have on the line finally gets the picture and cancels my account.

One upshot of the installation was finding out that the phone in the bedroom is not dead; the phone jack is. And since you need a phone line to start the Dish Network service, this resulted in a very frantic half hour at the box out in back of the house, turning the air blue every time I skinned my fingers, and ultimately ripping out most of the deadwood wiring back there so as to make sure the bedroom was connected. And after all that, the bedroom phone line still did not work.

In the end, we had to run a real long phone wire to the kitchen, the installer eventually left, and I was left to go back to the utility box and sort out which wire was which and to get my DSL working again.

* * *Among other activities today, I spend time running around town putting out fires and buying things for the house. In the end, I don't think I put in more than 1/2 hour of work past reviewing and sending in the environmental job, so it's looking like a pretty busy weekend.

Cheers...