He started it !

You're correct, young lady, the judge did start it.  But you see, he was holding  all the cards.  You had committed a crime and he was doing his job.  His role is to determine your immediate future; your role is to act remorseful and respectful, though neither emotion may not necessarily be heartfelt.  The judge's duty is to dispense justice in a fair and impartial manner, according to his professional discretion.  He did step out of bounds when, after so administering in your case, he punctuated his ruling with a cavalier "Bye, bye."   But the two of you are not on an equal footing; he is not one of your peeps, so you were treading on shaky ground when you replied "Adios."   So he started it, you hit back, and then the big guns came out and the game was over.  You broke all the rules of wordplay with obscenity and gesture, and will suffer the consequences.  You may or may not learn from your experience, and become a better citizen for your jail time.  The odds would unfortunately seem to be against it. The odds are even greater that the judge will not realize that he should dispense justice with the repsect due his position, and not add casual, snarky remarks to his decisions.  Bye, Bye!

Animal Farming...

We had the Iams commercial with the returning military woman and the Irish Wolfhound, where some doubt as to implication might remain.  The Geico commercial with the woman and the pig stranded in the broken-down car leaves no doubt as to meaning; the woman definitely wants attention from the pig.   Overt sexuality among humans has gone public on TV to the point most people are inured to it. So now, bestiality is the focus  of titillation for a jaded public.  Why, oh why?  

More Movie talk

Most parodies suffer from too much SNLism, but I think Emma Fitzpatrick could have auditioned successfully for the Anne Hathaway role in Les Miz, by virtue of her role in "For Your Consideration."  (See YouTube)

The Movies

   For a number of years, I saw every movie released.  In those days, there were double features, and the "B" movie was often recycled and paired with the main attraction, meaning you saw it more than once. I am still retroactively bored when I recall a certain movie involving airplanes flying over Mary Tyler Moore at a wedding party, or something like that.  I remember hardly anything about most of the movies I've seen, can not recall sections of dialog, or even the main plot lines.  All I'm left with is a general impression of the most memorable movies I've sat through.  Some throughout the years opinions:
  Worst Movie:    Face/Off----I know face transplants were in early development stage then, but really?  Grab a face-skin out of a medical lab, slap it on and John Travolta becomes Nicholas Cage, and able to run right out and fool people as to his identity.  (Or it could have been the other way around)   Another horror of  a movie, not to be confused with horror movie was Twins.  I remember nothing but Danny Devito and a feeling of intense boredom.
   Scariest Movie:   Still has to be Psycho, for the shock.  Not so much as at the surprise ending, but because it was the first movie I'd ever seen where who you assumed  were going to be the main characters were killed---first Janet Leigh and then Martin Balsam---who would have thought. 
 ( Scariest movie as a child:  Ma liked the idea of going to the movies, but we were able to go only a few times as a family back in the early days. I remember being somewhat nervous about one of those early movies, while Dorothy was absolutely terrified.  The movie opened with a man riding  a bicycle down a road at night and falling into a pit soon surrounded by a pack of dogs.  Another scene was of a  howling dog signaling that there had been a death.  I don't even know if they were parts of the same movie, but many years later Dorothy told me she'd seen that horrifying  movie on  TV, and it was a comedy, one of the Ma and Pa Kettle series, I think she said. No one had told us, and we didn't remember anyone laughing, though Ma used to repeat the "I'm Bert"  and  "I'm Mert" lines once in a while. We were so oblivious.)
   Most Repulsive Movie:   Blue Velvet----Ugh!  Block it out of my mind.
   Most Ominous and Unsettling Movie:  The River Wild----Kevin Bacon at his creepiest, kind of ahead of his time in depiction of psychopaths.
   Most Underrated Movie:  The Great Gatsby, the one starring Mia Farrow.  I remember seeing this at a drive-in the night we were having our house flea-bombed.  The kids were at Ma's, Roger the cat was at the vet's, and the movie had received lukewarm at best reviews.  It was our only option, I hadn't expected much, but ended up with a very positive opinion.  (I plan to see the new version with Leonardo Dicaprio, though the movie's approach seems entirely different.)
   On these sleepless nights, I recall what my son would ask me to do when he was little and couldn't sleep:  "Mom, would you come in and bore me to sleep?"   I would drone on about the old days, (that would have been any time before he was born), and after a fairly short time, he'd fall sleep.  Better than any sleeping pill.  Ho-hum, back to bed for me......

  

Gleaned Advice

   If you are ever accused of any type of criminal behavior, make sure everyone knows that you were sexually abused as a child.  If you could get on a show such as Dr. Phil, you are almost certainly home free.  All kinds of crimes and sins are justified as long as you say you're sorry, but you were so damaged by abuse that you had no choice but to act out in some fashion.    Even if you are  a sensation-seeker and a psychopathic liar, any assertion that you were molested when you were an innocent little kid will help to expiate your guilt.  If only Lance Armstrong had thrown that into the mix on the Oprah interview, he might have avoided the hounding for not rendering a total confession.  Didn't he have any adult relative or anonymous friend of the family who could have corrupted the innocence of his childhood?
    I'm sure almost every person ever born has suffered some blow to his childhood psyche, not restricted just to sexual abuse, but definitely disruptive to an idyllic childhood.  The prisons are filled with those whose less than ideal lives led to their downfalls, but that doesn't excuse them from responsibility for their actions.  Not to say that we can't understand and try to find pathways to rehabilitation and, more critically, try to repair the damage to the societal and family structures, but we can't allow the childhood molestation claim to explain criminal behavior.  Dr. Phil ought to be able to recognize when a person accused of manipulating another's life is also manipulating the  system, and he should recognize the irony when someone who lies in order to gain attention receives still greater attention for additional lying.  Just look at his face, Dr. Phil, instead of at the ratings.

Words to Live By

Best advice ever printed in The Troy Record, courtesy of Dr. Maxwell Alley, Orthopedic Surgeon:
     1)  Never ride a motorcycle.  Ever.
     2)  If you are not a roofer, don't go on the roof.
     3)  If you are not a lumberjack, don't cut down trees.
One time, when I was at an orthopedist's office with my child, the doctor told me that his 19-year-old son wanted a motorcycle, and that he said to his  son before he'd buy him a motorcycle he'd break his legs himself.  Last summer,  Dave had to schedule his appointments at a Saratoga orthopedist around the biker weekend in Lake George.  The doctor said all the area orthopedists would be on call in the emergency rooms that week.  It appears it's an annual orthopedic event.
  And as to amateur or do it yourself roofers and tree cutters, we hear and read about their unfortunate disasters. 
 
 

PEEVE

 I used to read both tabloids "The Daily News"  and "The Mirror" every day when I was a child.   One or other of the papers carried anecdotal accounts, i.e.:   "My most Embarrassing Moment"  and "Pet Peeves."   They were my favorite parts of the newspapers, and I particularly liked to read about what irked other people, thinking it kind of odd that adults would express their personal peeves.  The peeves, though, had  rules.  They could not fall in the category of actual complaints, nothing serious, and preferably at least slightly amusing. In those years, people tended to keep their private thoughts and feelings to themselves, but it was becoming okay to vent a little.
    When I became an adult, I'm sure I developed many peeves, but since the newspapers went out of business, I've waited until now to express a "pet peeve" in print, and one suitably minor in nature:   I am irked when someone says "Long story short."  It's okay as a headline or caption, or tweet or text, but when someone speaks those 3 words, I think, okay, you want to spare your listeners from a long detailed account, but can't you say the other 3 little words?   "To make a"  wouldn't take that long to say, and besides when someone prefaces their remarks with that statement, you can be more certain than not that their story will not be short.