Election Night Alternatives

Halloween is one of those nights that children look forward to weeks before it happens. So is Christmas Eve. Tonight is the opposite. I will be so glad when this evening is over. I am tired of watching all of those political commercials or listening to them on the radio. One will be for a proposition or candidate while the next one will be against the previous ad. Recently there was a story about a young girl crying because of all the name calling. I can sympathize.

My trick for getting through this evening is to not turn on the TV. That is why I am on my computer adding to my blog. Later I will be doing other things on the Internet. There are a number of wholesome and worthwhile activities to be found there. If I was at the office, playing online video games would be a great start. As I am on my boat and don't have my gaming console, I will opt for something else.

I could watch a movie on Hulu or NetFlix, but my Internet connection is shared among a number of other boats and can be slow at times. This causes pauses in a streaming video and can be rather tedious. This evening I am going to do some software development. Previously I mentioned I am working on a new game and so I will work on that. That would be a better use of my time anyways.

Foreign Languages

Yesterday I watched a World War II movie on Hulu. During the course of the action, several US soldiers took refuge in a French farmhouse. The woman is there all alone with her daughter and thankful to have the Allied protection. Naturally she only speaks French and tries to communicate with the guys that only speak English. It was fun for me to watch because I speak both languages fluently. It didn't occur to me that there weren't any subtitles until after I was done with the film. I imagine that it must be a different experience for those that only speak English.

Right now I am in the process of learning Morse code (and have been for quite a while). While it isn't a different language, it fells like it sometimes. I am using a program called "Morse" to help me. As I sit and listen to the dits and the dahs, it makes me wonder what is being said in the movies that have bits of Morse code. I understand that most of the time, the code is nothing at all. However every once and a while, it is real and there is a message hidden in there. The original movie about the Titanic called, "A Night to Remember" used the actual code sent from the fateful ship. If you understand Morse, I'll bet that would add to the experience.

Going back to the WWII movie I saw last night, there was also something else worthy of note. One of the German soldiers was my roommate when I lived in Strasbourg, France. He was able to help me learn French and so I had to laugh when I saw him in the German uniform. It is a good thing he didn't have a speaking part as I'm sure it would have come out with a French accent.