The Honeymooners – Complete Series Review – Episode 3 – The Golfer

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In this episode we are introduced to Ralph’s unending search for a gimmick to reach success in business.  He has been spreading a rumor at the bus company that the executive (Mr. Harper) who is choosing the new assistant traffic manager is a good friend of his and will pick Ralph for the job.

But when the other bus drivers realize that Ralph is the source of the rumors they break out into derisive laughter and one of them informs Ralph that Harper doesn’t even know that Ralph exists.  Ed Norton is having lunch with Ralph and hears about Ralph’s embarrassment.  Norton encourages Ralph to strike up a conversation with Harper and try to make a personal connection with the executive in order to increase his chances for the assistant traffic manager’s job.  So when Harper happens by Ralph tries out Norton’s advice and by lying about his golfing abilities (he has none but claims to be a pro) he catches Harper’s interest.

Norton erroneously assumes Ralph is serious about wanting to play Harper and backs Ralph into a corner that sets up a golf game between Ralph and Harper for the next morning.  When Harper leaves Ralph explodes at Norton for setting up the game.  He tells Norton that he can’t play at all and the game will expose Ralph as a complete fraud.  But Norton assures him that with a good book on learning golf and Norton’s help he should be able to convince Harper that he is a good golfer.

And this sets up the scene that is the highlight of the show Ralph and Norton trying to learn how to play golf in Ralph’s kitchen with an old golf club,  a round cloth pin cushion for the ball and Norton’s interpretation of the words of this “How to Play golf in One Easy Lesson” handbook.

And they get pretty good physical comedy mileage from that setup.  Ralph copying Norton’s hip gyrations while “addressing” the ball is enough to give Alice the best line of the show.  Alice arrives home just as Ralph is performing his limbering moves.  Seeing her he says, “I’m practicing golf.”  She replies, “Is that what it is?  The way your backfield was in motion I thought it was football.”

Alice’s discouraging words shake Ralph’s confidence and he comes to realize just how hopeless a situation he’s in.  But a miracle intervenes.  One of the other executives shows up at Ralph’s home and informs him that Harper injured himself and can’t play the next day.  But instead of gracefully accepting this stroke of luck he plays up how much he wanted to play Harper and of course the executive decides to take Harper’s place on the links with Ralph the next day.  After the executive walks out the door Ralph looks at Alice and says, “Well, Alice you’ve got to admit one thing.  I’ve got a biiiiig mouuuuth!”  End of episode.

So this whole episode is just an excuse for watching Ralph and Norton performing one of their desperate attempts to escape their working class limitations and end up on easy street.  And most of the fun is watching their expressions as they try to convince themselves that it is working.

But as always it’s the final interaction between Alice and Ralph that brings home the message that all of Ralph’s biggest problems stem from his desire to be more than he is.  I rat this episode highly because of the physical comedy between Ralph and Norton.  Well worth watching

21OCT2024 – OCF Update – Babylonian Captivity

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As previously whined, I am entering an extended period of limited access to the internet and limited time to post.  I will check as circumstance allows but it will be inadequate.  I’ll catch up at night and try to provide content but I predict quantity and quality will suffer.

Apologies from the management.  On with the show!

Focus Bracketing Inside the Sony A7 IV – Part 1

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Well, I couldn’t resist. I went on Sony’s website and found the pages with the firmware update (4.00). But upon reading the instructions I found out that since my firmware was at version 1.01, I had to first update my camera to version 1.05 before updating to version 4.00. The warning said that if I went straight to 4.00 it would cause an error and then I wouldn’t be able to fix the problem. Well, the camera gods are a jealous bunch and defying them is very unwise so along with many a grumble and even a few mumbles I went through the procedure twice.
1.01 to 1.05
1.05 to 4.00
And what do you know? It really worked. The drive menu had new options that included focus bracketing. After following the instructions from a YouTube video, I was able to quickly and easily run a quick bracket on a preserved tarantula spider specimen and send it through my focus stacking program (Affinity Photo) and, voila, edge to edge sharpness.

Now this was just a quick test. I had a kid’s party starting and barely got the files stacked before I had to go referee grandkids for Camera Girl. But it was definitely a proof of concept and I can see how this will work for even some field shots. Definitely usable for macro shots of plants like mushrooms and such and even for resting or sedate creatures like resting dragonflies and such. Of course, butterflies are out of the question. But a little testing is bound to bring up other applications.
So, all in all, this is an amazing surprise from Sony. Kudos to them for hearing my cries in the wilderness. Bravo, gentlemen, bravo.

21OCT2024 – Quote of the Day

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My intention is that the main village where the insurrection started shall be burnt, and that thirty of the ringleaders shall be shot; an impressive example is needed to contain the hatred of the peasantry and of that soldiery. If you have not yet made an example, let there be one without delay… Let not the month pass without the principal village, borough, or small town which gave the signal for the insurrection being burned, and a large number of individuals being shot… Traces must be left in the cantons which have rebelled.

Napoleon Bonaparte

20OCT2024 – OCF Update – This ‘N’ That

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Ah, the calm before the storm.  I have this weekend completely off before the next seventeen days of misery and isolation.  So, I’ll enjoy these two days to the hilt and then, “abandon all hope ye who enter here.”  For what it’s worth it seems like Trump is enjoying himself a lot more than Kamala.  Her cackling has diminished and her ranting seems to have replaced it.  From everything I’ve heard she is a truly awful person that makes those around her miserable.  If she loses, I wouldn’t be surprised if her marriage ends and many of her other connections to human society.

The latest “controversy” is that Democrat voters will be using the branding     ,LA      (get it, comma la) on their clothing to get around the restrictions against wearing the candidates’ names or images at the polling place.  So, we’ve reached back to, I guess, kindergarten or at most grammar school in our tactics.  What’s next, will the Democrats be telling “yo mamma” jokes?

Anyway, the weather around Dunwich has been remarkably mellow for this time of year.  I understand we’re expected to have a string of three or four 75-degree days ending on Tuesday.  That’s phenomenal.  But because I’ve gotten used to fall weather, it’s almost too warm for comfort.

I wrote that post about Sony adding focus bracketing to their firmware update for my A7IV camera.  I intended to wait until after my captivity before updating the firmware but it’s killing me to not try it out.  I think I’ll bite the bullet tomorrow morning.  I have this dead luna moth that I found this summer and I’d love to play around with focus stacking it.  Well, we’ll see.  Tomorrow is a busy day.  We have a kid’s birthday party coming up and I’m sure Camera Girl has a laundry list of honey-do’s lined up for me.  And honestly there are several things I should be working on anyway.  So even if I update the camera I may have to wait.

It should be interesting to see how the country changes regardless of who “wins” the election.  I think there’s a growing cohort that realizes that something is very broken with our whole social order.  The fragmentation now extends to a polarization by sex.  Younger women and men are lining up in opposition to each other philosophically.  I really do believe we are seeing the beginning of a permanent split.  Basically, women who have accepted the new template for living for a career will not be having children.  And that means that men will have to find wives who want to have children elsewhere.  I guess mail order overseas brides will become more the rule than the exception and over time the cat ladies will die out.  Well, that’s a solution of sorts.

The “October Viewing” movies has been fun for me but it’s gotten me thinking about what a monster is.  Is it only freakish creatures like Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster or can it be a man like Hannibal Lecter or Norman Bates?  Obviously, the actual humans are scarier because they really exist.  When you hear about the things that Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer did to their victims you understand that inside they truly are monsters.  So maybe creating fairy tale creatures like the movie monsters is a way of distracting ourselves from the true horrors that we don’t want to contemplate.  But our society has grown up and now we prefer to scare ourselves with realistic monsters.  I remember when I read Thomas Harris’s “Red Dragon” back in the 1980’s it struck me as an interesting crime story and nothing more.  But when I thought about the way that that the murderer selected his victim families by working in a photo lab that developed family home movies, it chilled me to the core.  If a motivated psychopath could select his victims without any direct connection to him then how could anyone hope to protect his family from this random agent of horrifying destruction?  Basically, you can’t.  Random chance rules all of our lives.  That I found horrifying.  So maybe I should include “Psycho” and “Silence of the Lambs” in my October Viewings.  Or maybe that would take away some of the fun.  Well, October is waning I better hurry up and make up my mind.  What do you folks think?