Atomictumor

The title says it all, right? I can just stop typing now, hit the “Publish” button and call it a day.

When we test drove our van, the lcd on the cd player didn’t work. We were told that sometimes “they just go out” and sorry Mr. & Mrs. Tumor, there was nothing else we could do. Sometimes it comes back to life for a short period. That’s when I rush to program stations… while I can still see the call numbers.

After we signed the papers and gave them our check, we got in the van to go home. Smoke started issuing from the left headlight. That appeared to be a case of mechanic who’s too stupid to install a lightbulb.

About a year ago a fly got in the van. I rolled down my driver’s window to let it out. I pushed the button to raise the window, but nothing happened. That night, AT took a look at it and managed to get the window up, but smoke started coming out of the door where the motor is.

Sometimes the passenger window works, but we try not to use it since we don’t know if it’ll ever go back up again.

The sunroof, too.

The “door ajar” sensors on the trunk and rear driver’s side door malfunction. Every time I go up a hill or hit a bump, the interior lights come on.

The RPM meter is stuck.

I’m almost out of windshield wiper fluid, so every time I turn a curve, that light comes on. Yeah, that one’s fixable. We’re just lazy.

The other day I woke up to take the kids to school. I hit my head on a lamp, couldn’t find my f-in’ keys, the kids couldn’t find any of their stuff. When I got to the van, everything malfunctioned at the same time. I got huffy and stomped my foot on the brake pedal.

Now the “service brakes” light comes on every time I use them.

Anyone want to buy a van? It has a tv and vcr.

I bumped across this in my web wanderings today, which appears to be written by one of those weird assed firebrand political types, but brings up a topic that my subconscious has been mulling over recently.

Homework in elementary schools.

Apparently, according to the book reviews cited in Slate, Japanese schools are slowing down on the amount of homework assigned to the kids, while American schools (as I, and about anyone with a kid these days have learned) are assigning more and more.  The thinking appears to be that nobody can find any kind of correlation between doing this homework and learning anything.

This has been a thought that I have long agreed with, in my own slack way.  When MastaG was coming home with homework in the 2nd grade, it was understood that it was essentially homework for me and GAC.  That we were to sit down with him, walk his protesting mind through the reams of mathematics, or the coloring busy work, or whatever, and somehow a benefit would drop in somewhere.

The benefit seems to be that ol’ MastaG shares my dislike for homework, tho I fail to see how useful that is.

We were talking at Willowbrooks recent open house with his language teacher regarding the boy, and she says she doesn’t assign homework for that same reason, that she’s seen all the studies and research, and none of it backs up the idea that a kid in elementary school gets anything but the runaround from doing homework.  She also said that what a kid really needs, in these days of constant motion and stimulation, is some mental downtime, and assigning a kid an hour of homework a night actually takes away from this stuff.

So, rock on, Japan.  On top of robots, and what has been generally considered to be one of the finer education systems in the civilized world, you agree with me on homework.

Boredom can lead to many horrible things: nose goblin collections, unwanted pregnancies, Paris Hilton movies and self-flagellation, to name but a few. But on the most rare of occassions, it can also lead to wonderful examinations of television intros.

So, without further ado…

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For every good Asian movie, there are 5,134 bad ones. Here are a few of the sucktastic ones I’ve seen.

Pulse: (sorry Joe) Asian horror movies are a dime a dozen, but this one was on the clearance rack. It made little sense. Normally, that’s not a problem as Asian horror is often hard to follow. This one made less sense than most. It had something to do with ghosts and forbidden doors that people put red tape around. If you went into the forbidden room, you’d die. Unless you were that one chick who managed to get out somehow.

St. John’s Wort: This movie was made to look like a video game, or is a video game, or was based on a game, or a game was based on it’s plot. Pick one, it doesn’t matter. It involved some kids wandering around an old house and then some stuff seemed like it was going to happen, but it didn’t. I made it all the way to the end of this one only because I thought there’s no way a movie can have absolutely no merit. I was wrong.

Infection: The best part of this movie was the color of the funky phone about 15 minutes into the movie. But what’s it about, you ask? Infection. Duh.

A Tale of Two Sisters: Again, the first hour or so, you watch it, waiting, knowing that something has to happen eventually. Right? No, sorry. Something about abuse, and an armoire. Pretty scenery but eminently forgettable and skippable.

Tomie: HOLY SHIT IT’S A HEAD IN A BAG! Other than that, I don’t remember anything about it.