Dan from Madison

The Difficult Transition from Black and White Cinematography

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During the ‘rona era, I have received a pretty nice benefit – more time. Time to do other things than work, that is. I now understand what they mean when people who fly privately say that private jets are like “time machines”. While private jets harvest time and the ‘rona has made me inherit time, the end game is the same. While I’m making less money, my life sure is more enjoyable. So maybe I actually have more treasure now. I’m digressing.

In this extra time I have been studying French and watching old movies on FXM and Turner Classic Movies. I love looking at the historical technology (i.e. dial phones), elaborate sets both in sound studios and in locations around the world, and the differences in culture between “then” and “now”. The history of movie making is also interesting to me. We like to take Spring Break in LA and I always try to hit one of the studios for the museum and historical tours they offer.

This morning’s feature was “Intent to Kill“, a somewhat ridiculous movie with some nice cinematography. As with anything, you win some and you lose some.

The movie is in black and white. When I looked up the movie I saw that it was filmed in 1958 and thought to myself “Didn’t they have color movies way before then?”. My Google-fu was strong this morning, and now I have the answer to that question. This is a fascinating article for those who like movies (especially old ones) or for those who are interested in economics and old tech.

Recommended Watching – Women at War, 1914-1918

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I am learning French and part of that is watching French entertainment with English subtitles. I googled “Netflix shows in French with English subtitles” and stumbled upon one of the most interesting things I have watched on TV, well, ever.

Women at War, 1914-1918 is the story of how the women in France handled, or were made to handle, their men all leaving for the front lines. Subjects included pacifism movements, women working in fields and munition plants, among many other topics. There was also a lot of front line footage. Some of the footage was from Germany, but the vast majority is from France.

Speaking of the footage, it was simply amazing. The producers digitized and colorized photos and films from the era and I was stunned at the quality. I paused the movie a bunch of times to take in certain frames.

Highly recommended for those with not just an interest in the main subject matter of women at war, but anyone with a WW1 interest.

***Caution*** Some of the footage is graphic (war wounds and dead bodies), and there is a bit of nudity.

25 Stories About Work – Harassing a Fortune 500 CEO

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A short one here.

I run a small business here in the hinterlands of this great country and many years ago I had the opportunity to poke a Fortune 500 CEO in the eye, repeatedly.

To this day I can’t remember how or why I got his personal email and cell numbers but I did. It was likely some sort of a mistake that was made at a trade show or something. The net is that I had them.

I was a distributor for one of this company’s many lines. They made some completely awful decisions that had to do with the local market. I called the CEO several times and told him that these decisions needed to be reversed, immediately, or literally 100% of their sales would go away in my markets.

Of course this is exactly what happened, and with relish, I called the CEO after their sales in my markets went to the level of zero, previously predicted, and asked him to tell me that I was right and how smart I was. I also told him what a great job his competitors were doing since we had moved away to their products in a heartbeat when the disastrous strategy was rolled out. He shouted at me and I laughed at him and asked him again to tell me how right and smart I was. He hung up on me after using some bad words. I laughed my ass off.

Eventually he got tired of my nonsense and blocked me, but it was fun since he actually took my abuse so many times (even though my “abuse” was actually the boots on the ground truth). I started out polite and respectful, but when he acted like I was just some dopey hick from the sticks that didn’t know jack, well, I was forced to taunt him several times, as Monty Python used to say.

25 Stories About Work – The Sales and Use Tax Audit

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During a recent conversation I was reminded of our fabulous “25 Stories About Work” series here on the blog and thought I would share one with you. This post is going to be fairly boring to most, although it will be interesting to those who like to hear about what small business owners go through on the daily, and who may also be interested in what happens if you are presented with a sales and use tax audit. The rest is below the fold.

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Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

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So our fabulous governor here in Wisconsin just extended our shelter in place order through May 26. From the state website, we here in Dane County have had a grand total of ten new cases of covid this week. For those who are counting, that is .0018% of the population. Put into words, eighteen thousandths of one percent.

In the last two days, we have literally had more pedestrians die from getting hit by cars than from covid. And yet, the power grab continues. Other counties have far smaller ratios.

Predictably, after yesterdays announcement of the extension of the economy killing order, protests are planned. I may attend if time allows.

The good news is that you can go play a round of golf now (bring your snow shovel in parts of the state and perhaps a non white colored ball). State parks still closed. Not sure what the golf course lobbyists have on the governor but it must be good.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Update: I have heard a story that a friend’s wife got pulled over by the local cops for doing nothing other than driving home from picking up some chicken. So that’s starting now. She will be at the protest next Friday at the capitol.