Happy Easter

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
. . .
Then Simon Peter came . . . and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.
. . .
Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, "Peace be with you."
Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing."
Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."

from the Book of John, chapt 20

Right idea, wrong vehicle

If Courtney Stodden is trying to get into the movies, she's supposed to be washing Michael Bay's Ferrari, not some crappy Jeep:

And for the record . . . that's the dumbest looking bikini top I've ever seen. Seriously, it's a posed photo shoot honey, you're not going to fall out of it. Sheesh!

And Boucher's gone

The Tampa Bay Lightning which started out smokin' hot with a 6-1 start, inexplicably collapsed into a 7-16 freefall which today cost talented head coach Guy Boucher his job.

Local sports tool Tom Jones of the Tampa Bay (formerly St. Pete) Times blames GM Steve Yzerman for the underperforming team.  But it's not Yzerman's fault that new goalie Anders Lindback isn't coming into form quickly enough or that back-up Mathieu Garon has turned into Dwayne Roloson all of the sudden.

Jones faults Yzerman for not stocking the team with top flight talent, but conveniently forgets that the Bolts couldn't afford to spend money like the Yankees.

All the way back to the Jacques Demers days, this team has had a bizarre habit of not staying with a winning formula.  Even after winning the Stanley Cup, the next season the guys seemed to forget everything that John Tortarella taught them about schemes and such.  I cannot remember how many times Torts would be in the paper or on tv talking about the players not playing the system.  They would buy back in and start winning.  Then abandon it and start losing again.  They've done the same thing to Boucher this season.

Bummer

Top speculation to replace Boucher has either former Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff or AHL Syracuse coach Jon Cooper.  Coop may have the slight advantage as he has worked with a lot of the young players now on the Bolts squad when they were in the minors.  Also, like Boucher when he was in the minors, Cooper is on everyone's "next big thing" radar.  If they pick up Ruff and sign him to a long term contract, which Ruff will want, they will probably lose Cooper to another team.

This sucks

And to Boucher . . . thanks for all you've done here, I for one would have liked you to stay on.

Haminator, part 2

Or, what Mary Katherine Ham doesn't know about the Post Office could fill a book . . . and probably should.

In a recent post, MKH expressed her dismay at the Post Office continuing to function with six day delivery.  Also saddening to her is the fact that conservative budget hero, Paul Ryan's own proposed budget "...spares the Postal Service from vehicle fleet reductions imposed on other agencies despite the fact that mail volume has been steadily decreasing." 

What the Haminator doesn't know, because she didn't bother to check, is that the decline in volume seems to be leveling off.  When coupled with a 15% increase in parcels (we delivered 35.6% of FedEx's ground shipments last fiscal year...yeah, she doesn't know that either), it's not like our trucks are going on the street empty.  We're also not losing deliveries, so we actually still need the mail trucks honey.

Though the Post Office has reduced the number of city carriers by over 28% since 1997, we are functioning with a vehicle fleet that is over 20 years old.  My own truck has over 80,000 miles of stop & go city driving on it.  Starting and shutting off hundreds of times a day.  Driving through flooded streets . . . you know, that whole "wind, rain, dark of night" business.  Basically, we can't afford to just toss old vehicles away because there's always the chance we have to replace one that can no longer be repaired.

MKH also doesn't have any idea what the current business plan is within the P.O.  So far this year, we've hired over 30,000 part time carriers, the new CCA's, and management's idea is to flood the offices with part-timers to pick up all the overtime.  It sounds good on the surface, but the idea has been tried before and has failed miserably.

Let's look at a hypothetical office with 20 routes.  If it's like my office (I work 10 hours a day, six days a week . . . yeah, I'm exhausted) you'll have about 20 hours of overtime a day to pick up.  So figure 5 CCA's to pick up four hours each.  Why like that?  Well, first off, Scotty doesn't just beam you from route to route, so there's driving time between "pieces" plus you've got to get your stuff set up, etc.  Plus that whole pesky federal law about a 10 minute break every four hours, a lunch at six or more . . . oh for the glorious days of forced labor and sweatshops, right Mary?

So four hours in pieces takes about six hours.

Secondly, these subs cannot do the route pieces as fast or as accurately as the regulars.  Just a fact.  As I mentioned in the other post, we send this dude out to do a route that we're expected to finish by 3:45 and we have to send 5 guys out to rescue him just to get him back by 5:30.  We carriers may be trained chimps, but we're the Dr. Zaius chimps.

So one sub . . . 4 hours in pieces.

Anyway, what are these CCA's gonna drive?  If we need five subs, we need five trucks.  Can't reduce the fleet if we need more vehicles for all these overtime-wiper-outers to drive.  And you can't just suggest they drive our trucks when we get back.  The Post Office has adjusted these routes to eight hours a day or more already (mine is adjusted to 8 hours and 7 minutes out of season), and is in the process of gaming the numbers to make the routes even larger.  If 4:00 is our end tour, we're just getting back a few minutes before that.  And neither we, nor the subs, can be on the street after 5:00, that whole "window of operation" thingy that is supposedly about safety but is routinely violated by management directive.  So there's no time for these subs to take our trucks out and deliver our overtime.  Unless you're going to hire 20 guys and have them waiting for us to get back, just to jump in our trucks and finish our routes for us.  Now there's some real efficiency for ya!

You see, it's a bit more complicated than just striking through numbers on a balance sheet.

Movie review -- Dredd

Caught this on pay-per-view the other night and found it to be thoroughly enjoyable.

In 1995 the first Judge Dredd movie was released starring Sylvester Stallone at the peak of his steroidal box office drawing power. That movie was a mash-up of Blade Runner, Demolition Man, and other flicks that some purists (I'm not one as I'm only peripherally familiar with the Dredd character) decried as too far afield from the original comic source. Though it did have hottie Diane Lane in a body suit going for it, so that was nice.

I'm assuming the success of the Nolan/Frank Miller Batman trilogy convinced someone that Dredd could be rebooted if it was "gritted up" properly, so we get this new version released in 2012. I'm hearing it was planned as a trilogy which sort of validates my assumption here.

Anyway, we have Karl Urban cast as Dredd in this version. And since Dredd does not remove his helmet in the film, Urban is probably the best choice for him, since he should have his scowl patented. Much like Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta, Dredd's entire range of emotion (such as it is) has to be portrayed in body language and lower half facial expressions. I cannot think of anyone better to do this than Urban.

The movie opens with Dredd chasing some criminals through the streets of Mega City. Once they kill a pedestrian, Dredd goes into full judge mode, using his motorbike's (a more practical looking bike than Stallone's version) machine guns to crash the van they're driving. With two perps dead, Dredd stalks the third guy into a mall where the dude has a woman hostage. Dredd gives the guy a choice, life in Iso-cubes or death. When the baddie refuses, Dredd gives the first of several nice one-liners: "Negotiation's over." then shoots the guy dead. Unlike typical cop movies, the woman doesn't scream at Dredd for being a fascist or risking her life, but sincerely thanks him.

Returning to the precinct house, Dredd is given a new assignment -- a one day evaluation of a rookie who barely failed at the academy. Cassandra Anderson, played by petite Olivia Thirlby, is the most powerful psychic the force has come across and the higher ups want to see if she can make it anyway. My understanding is that Anderson is a much beloved character in the comic, so this is an appreciated nod to the fan boys out there.

A nice touch here as once they get going, Dredd defers to Anderson in almost all situations. As a training officer at the Post Office, I get three days to train new carriers. The first day, I drive, mostly explaining things and nuances about my route. The second day, I only drive the most difficult parts. But the third day, it's all them. I let them make all the mistakes and only point out what they're doing wrong and the consequences of those mistakes -- so they'll learn. The writers did this with this script and it hit home with me. Another minor style point that I don't know many would appreciate.

Anderson decides they should investigate a triple homicide in a building named Peach Trees -- one of the mega structures of the new world. A mile high mixed usage building housing businesses and living quarters. Like all engineered societies, it's a slum, like the one Anderson grew up in. A place where she wants to make a difference.

Here's where we get a couple more important plot points. The building is run by a gang -- the Ma Ma Clan. Ma Ma is a former hooker named Madeline Madrigal played with greasy goodness by Lena Headey. Scarred and demented, Headey plays Ma Ma as a serpentine psychotic -- understated, drugged out, totally ruthless . . . it's a fabulous performance.

The clan produces the movie's signature drug -- Slo Mo, something ingested through an inhaler that tricks the mind into feeling like time is moving at one percent its normal speed. The inhaler is pretty cool, with a glass tube on the top with lava-light like viscous fluids inside.

Dredd again defers to Anderson who decides they should find the drug dealer's apartment and apprehend the assumed suspects. Outside the apartment there's a great exchange between Dredd and Anderson. After asking Anderson if this is her first live fire situation, Dredd points out that Anderson has forgotten her helmet. Anderson explains that the helmet might interfere with her psychic abilities. Dredd deadpans that "... a bullet to the head might interfere with them more." heh

The shoot out inside is a eye popping scene. The dude's are all high on Slo Mo, so it is shot in hyper slo-motion. We see bullets ripping through bodies and the concurrent impact waves, blood droplets flying . . . amazing. The movie was released in 3D, so I imagine this looked awesome on screen. But during the "arrest" Anderson realizes that they've apprehended one of the killers in the triple homicide, who also just happens to be one of Ma Ma's top lieutenants. When they try to leave, that's when things get crazy.

The mega towers are equipped with blast doors and shutters to survive nuclear war, she seals up the building and attempts to hunt down and kill the two judges. This is the bulk of the movie and it is well done and believable, at least as much as any movie is. We get to see Anderson grow from a tentative rookie to a remorseless Judge who kills without hesitation.

Urban plays Dredd like a shark -- a deliberate, relentless, lethal destructive force. Like I mentioned earlier, he does an excellent job of portraying various emotions through only scowls, grimaces, pursed lips and body language. We get the mission variable sidearm -- the Lawgiver, a more practical uniform (another nod to Nolan's Batman reboot), some pretty cool field dressing for gunshots, a nice touch of Dredd reloading his firearm and securing more ammunition (a often overlooked bit in the infinite firepower guns in most movies) and a clever finale.

As previously noted, I believe the movie was planned as part one of a trilogy. I don't know what the parameters to green light the sequels are, the flick cost $35 million to make and only grossed $13 million according to Imdb. But I'd like to see two more of these. It's so hard to get decent adaptations of comic books (don't get me started on the X-Men or Wolverine, ugh) these days, but this is a series that deserves to be made.

If you haven't seen Dredd, I highly recommend it.

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And as a bonus, here's some pics of the wonderful Lena Headey from a recent issue of Esquire:

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Did you find this review helpful? Check out my other reviews for my thoughts on the flicks and the occasional gallery of hotness that accompanies them:

So now it's Mary Katherine Ham's turn I guess

Over at Hot Air  there's a new posting about the USPS staying with Saturday deliveries, this time by Mary Katherine Ham.  The Haminator joins the other postal service haters at the site in taking a superficial swipe at the service bolstered by little more than reading what others have written and commenting on it.  Not the most accurate way to disseminate info to your readers.

She regurgitates the data about fiscal 2012's losses, but fails to note that 80% of those losses are due to pre-funding mandate imposed by the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.  Missing from her post was that the first quarter of fiscal 2013, the Post Office had a $100 million operational profit!  Sort of an important bit of info, don't you think?

But only if you're trying to give the whole picture, which MK is not.

She might also point out the $50 - $75 billion in pension costs overcharged to the Post Office since 1971 that the federal government refuses to return.  That is because those funds count as income for the fed and for Congress to permit a refund it would be forced to either make cuts (a Dem no-no) or raise taxes (a Rep no-no) the equivalent amount.  And that ain't happenin' anytime soon!

The Haminator points out that Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) both complained about Postmaster Donahoe's accounting in his claims about a $2 billion savings by cutting out Saturday deliver, but says those concerns were answered by a letter from the Postal Regulatory Commission.  Problem is that even in their letter, the Commission notes that "...we caution that the methodology to estimate revenue loss resulting from a lesser delivery frequency suffers from material flaws.  As a result . . . the estimate . . . may not be reliable."  

Yeah.  You see, honey, the Regulatory Commission isn't the Post Office.  They're an outside group who rely on data provided to them by the post office to make their recommendations.  There is no outside accounting of the Post Office.  Anyone, even the unions, who ask for information, simply have to take what is given to them by the PO to work out whatever it is they're working on. That's sort of like going to the guy who's embezzling money from the bank and asking him for the books to catch the embezzler.  Pretty much not gonna work.  

Those, like Ham, who say the unions are the hold up here, number one, woefully overestimate the influence the feckless unions have on the post office.  But secondly, the unions have been actively offering suggestions to cut costs and help keep the PO viable.  One idea is to allow the PO to become a government owned corporation.  This would free the USPS from micro-managing and crippling regulations and allow it to freely explore revenue raising options like new products (no, not that odious clothing line), index stamp prices, etc.

Lost in all this common sense about delivering only packages on Saturday is exactly how that would be accomplished.  No one ever thinks about that.  If you're going to have your entire work force working anyway, why not deliver the mail at the same time?  Duhrr.

But of course, unbeknownst to these blogging clowns is that the PO's idea is to have CCA's do the Saturday deliver.  CCA's are the new part-timers we have.  We've got one at my office.  Nice kid.  When we send him out to deliver a route, we have to send five guys out to look him up to get him back by 6:00!  How the f*ck is he going to deliver a city's worth of parcels?!  

I would imagine Saturday's would be like this -- a supervisor, at least two clerks to sort the packages, and one CCA for every two routes.  So that's 10 people at work on Saturday.  Eight trucks on the road for eight hours (at least).  How is that saving $2 billion per year?!  Plus the PO estimates that being open Saturday brings in about $5 billion a year in revenue, so some or all of that would be lost.  Because you know FedEx and UPS will be jumping to grab our Saturday parcel business.

So eight part-timers misdelivering parcels to create a net loss of $3 billion per year.  Am I missing something here?  I'm no brain scientist, but I'm thinking that ain't good business.

Pity the Haminator didn't take a little time to dig into this instead of going for cheap traffic and comments.  But I don't expect any better from the trolls at HotAir. 

Calvin and Hobbes animation...Yay!

'Cause I miss them so much . . .