Great Military Historical T.V. Series

Now that the Sarah Connor Chronicles are over, I'm finding a dearth of good genre action adventure shows on broadcast t.v. Don't let me get started on Heroes.

Thankfully, last week my best friend told me about The Deadliest Warrior series on Spike T.V. (http://www.spike.com/show/31082) Fortunately, for those of us without cable, many cable networks play their most recent episodes of t.v. shows online. So I've had the opportunity to watch who would win in the following death matches: Ninja versus Spartan and Pirate versus Knight.

While the show is entertaining, it is also quite maddening. For example, in the Ninja versus Spartan fight, the ninja was weighed down with a ton of weapons. Sword, flash bombs, a sickle on a chain (I forgot the name), a blow gun and who knows what else. Plus he is a fighter used to fighting one on one and by stealth where as the Spartan is all about protecting the man on your left-team fighting-and fighting your enemy face to face. I guess that's the point. Pitting two very different fighters against each other. And while I was saying, no way he wouldn't do that, or carry all that gear, I must say the show was interesting. And it makes for a good discussion later when you pull for one guy and your buddy is pulling for another. I won't spoil the ending, just watch the cool five minute clip.



That being said I wanted something different tonight. Something with a slightly less reality/game show feel and didn't have a chance of upsetting me.

So I went to Hulu.com. On a post early last year, I raved about Hulu.com's free t.v. shows and movies and how they actually had all of the episodes of Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot. While it is still a great site, it seems like they've gotten more into t.v. shows and less into movies this year. As I was searching t.v. shows as most of the the movies were pretty low quality, I there were quite a few links to History Channel t.v. shows.

Battle B.C. (http://www.history.com/content/battles-bc) is now my favorite new show (at least until and if The Sarah Connor Chronicles returns). It is the History Channel's new t.v. series where the greatest battles of antiquity are discussed by experts and replayed with cinematography reminiscent of Frank Miller's 300.

Tonight, I watched the episode discussing Alexander the Great's last major campaign-the invasion of India. It was awesome! If you love ancient military history, this series is for you.

Enjoy.

The New Bell Ringers for Charity

I’m sure everyone out there has been asked by their local grocer to donate money to charity.

I don’t remember when it started. Perhaps it was a year ago when I began noticing the clear plastic cans taped to the check-out counters asking for donations. Then about three months ago I remember being asked by my cashier if I wanted to donate a $1 to charity or round off my purchase to the nearest dollar. And now, not only is the cashier asking me if I want to donate to charity, the touchtone screen where you sign or key in your pin asks you if you want to donate to charity.

So I wondered, are the grocery stores really doing this out of the goodness of their hearts?

When all that was involved was taping a plastic container to the counter, I figured the charity put it there, someone came in once a week to collect the donations and then the container was taped back to the counter for another week, so there was no cost on the grocery store’s part.

But when grocery store cashiers started asking for donations, I started to wonder. I mean, they have obviously had training to ask for donations. The stores definitely put pressure on the cashiers to ask for donations. If the cashiers don’t ask, the customer receives a free 2-Liter soda, and I’m sure the employee would be reprimanded if that happened. Even if a cashier didn’t ask for a donation, I’m not sure I’d be willing to bust them because they didn’t ask. I'd probably thank them.

And now with the inclusion of the message on the touch screen that some computer programmer somewhere had to write the code for, and another to separate the donations from the rest of a customer’s purchase and then someone else in accounting cutting checks to the charities for the donated money, there is obviously a significant cost to the grocery store.

Again I ask, are the stores really doing this out of the goodness of their hearts? Are they really not comped in some way? At a minimum they must be receiving a write-off and the CEO probably receives a nice dinner and certificate at the end of the year by the charity for doing such a wonderful job. I wonder if the charities kick in any money to help train the staff--money that was donated to the cause?

I remember working at a large bank that made a huge push every year for their employees to contribute to a major charity. Sure it was all “volunteer”, but when every employee is required to return a form whether a donation is included or not, with a record of what you donated last year and how much you should contribute this year based on your salary, and departments are recognized based on their level of participation, it all gets a little seedy. Especially, when the scandal broke out in the 90’s about how almost all of that charity's money went to the people who ran the charity and for administrative costs and almost none of the money went to the people in need.

So again I wonder what the grocery store gets out of this pro bono work? Perhaps nothing, just a sense of doing something for the community. But what a great deal for the charities if that’s the case. The charities don’t have to pay people to stand outside the grocery stores begging for money. The charities actually have people working for them inside the store that potential donors have to talk to (we can’t avoid them by walking out the other door otherwise we’d be arrested for shoplifting), who they don’t have to pay. Grocery store employees that can use the peer pressure of those standing in line behind the targeted customer, or their familiarity with the customer to make their customers’ feel like a heel when they tell the cashier that they won’t round that .90 up to a dollar to help needy children.

Perhaps the grocery store's are trying to make up for their heavy handed tactics during the grocery strike--but I doubt it. Nothing's for free.

Tis the season of father-son dreams

Yes, tis the season all fathers and sons look forward to: Pinewood Derby season.

Boys join Cub Scouts and Indian Guides for any number of reasons, camping, hiking, to learn something new or to spend quality one-on-one time with a parent. But highest on every boy’s list, except for camping, has to be the Pinewood Derby races. That event when a father and son (and more father than son for the younger boys) has the opportunity to turn a block of wood into an awesome, silly, or bizarre-looking race car.

Last year my son said, "Daddy, I want a Batman car."

I looked at the rectangular-shaped block of pine, scratched my head and said, "How about if I paint a Batman symbol on it?" He said okay.

This year he said, "Daddy, I want Speed Racer."

Again I looked at the rectangular block of wood, scratched my head and said, "What if I paint an "M" on the front?"

"Okay," he said "but it has to have curves, fives here and here, a steering wheel, jumpers on the bottom, and a trunk."

"A trunk?" I asked.

"Yes, right here." He proceeded to show me his Matchbox Speed Racer and the line that symbolized the car's trunk. Needless to say this car took me the longest to do in the three years I have been "helping" my sons with their cars.




The Indian Guides’ big race was last Saturday. There are few times more exciting than when your son’s car is placed at the starting gate for its first race. That car you spent countless hours cutting, sanding, and painting to make it look just right. And the other hours you spent on the internet researching techniques to give your son's car that extra little edge that will keep him from ending up in last place at which time you will have to staunch your son’s tears by explaining that it’s not if you win or lose, but how you play the game, even though your stomach tightens when that obnoxious father bellows how great his son is because he won or when the other fathers start giving you advice on what you can do better next year. (Not that this ever happened to me mind you...)

So as I was saying, there are few times as exciting as that first race, when you have no idea how well your car will do. If that fire truck in lane one is really as slow as it looks; if that low-profile car shaped like a domino that is almost nothing but wheels and weights is really as fast as it looks; if the arrow car’s unique strategy of putting the weights on top the car will pay off; or if you added too much or too little graphite to the wheels of your son’s Speed Racer car.



To give you an idea of the intensity of the race, cars are raced multiple times against each other in various lanes to ensure, god forbid, one car doesn't have an advantage over another because one lane is faster than the other. (Lane 3 was the fastest this year.)

Another way to ensure fairness, the Indian Guides have instituted an electronic finish line which lights up the winner’s lane. But don’t think this clears up any controversy about who the winner is. When one car clearly lost a heat, but its lane light didn’t go off, the loser’s father insisted the heat be run again. And in the Cub Scouts, the finish line is computerized. Good thing too. Last year,the difference between the first and third place winning car times for the Tiger Cub races was a tenth of a second. Some individual races ended up as dead heats even though the computer could calculate a difference of a hundredth of a second.

Which brings us to the end of the race. Always in any race room I’ve been in – Guide or Scout -, you’ll always hear intense discussions amongst the fathers about why this car did well, or didn’t, what’s more important - weight placement or aerodynamics, and always the dreaded advice about what you should do next year.

In the end, my son in the Indian Guides reached the quarter finals making him extremely happy. The domino car was indeed as fast as it looked, never losing a heat. And my son received two third place awards: “fastest looking” and the People’s Choice Award for the “best overall car”.



Next week: the Cub Scout races.