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You know what, I said I was going to talk about the dog show, but you know what, I’m not. My pictures didn’t really come out (that’s why I got a new camera), so maybe next year I’ll take my new camera there and take more betterer pictures and blog about it then. So no dog show this year. Sorry if I misled you.

I took a three-day class in Final Cut Pro, which is becoming the industry standard for film editing. I used to be surprised when I met people and asked them what programs they worked in, and they would say, “Final Cut,” and I would say, “What other ones?” and they would say, “Just Final Cut.” Now I get it. That program is ROBUST. It’s like a never-ending labyrinth of of panels and windows and drop-down thingies and other corresponding programs just for sound, or text, or color. The text on the screen is minute, and it has to be, otherwise you can’t fit everything on there. And you know how there are key commands for programs? In Final Cut, the key commands have key commands nested in them. Look at the freakin’ keyboard, for pete’s sake.

I loved the class, don’t get me wrong, but I realized from this class that either you learn and use Final Cut, or you learn and use everything else. Ever. In the world. I paid attention so hard my brain got itchy. I kind of glad I don’t have a Mac at home, because otherwise I would have gone out and spend the $1,200 or whatever to buy Final Cut Pro and then I never would have left my apartment ever, ever again. I’m already a bit of a homebody, so that would be the final straw.*

So I saw The Reader about two weeks ago. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. It’s a good movie and perfect for the Oscars: depressing, moody, lots of meaningful nudity, etc. It’s no shocker it won a bunch of golden guys. However, I have some basic problems with the film. I appreciate that Michael (the lead) can’t separate himself from Hanna (played by Kate Winslet), even when he finds out that she was an Auschwitz guard. Fine, we’re different people. But the whole thing in the movie is that Hanna is ashamed of the fact that she can’t read, and she would rather take the rap for a crime she didn’t commit and get a life sentence than be “outed” as illiterate. Whoooooo. Now, I assumed she had dyslexia or some learning disability, but near the end of the movie, she teaches herself to read and there’s nothing wrong with her. So I cannot understand why, when Hanna was younger, she didn’t go to a bookstore, tell the clerk she needed some children’s books for a friend with a baby, take them home and then teach herself to read. Her whole life went into the crapper because she couldn’t get around to finding out twenty-six little rinky-dink characters and their relationship to each other. I want to sit down with a bunch of people who think this movie is the greatest thing ever and ask them this. It… it seems so basic a question. Did anyone else see this film? Will they answer this question for me?

* My co-workers are perpetually shocked when I leave my house. I compare myself to a goblin who lives under a bridge, who comes out at night to eat children and steal your gold coins and take that sock you can never find to make a matching pair. But that’s giving myself too much credit. Goblins are more social than I will ever be.