Monday Morning Movie Review: Prisoners of Ghostland (2021) and Incident in a Ghostland (2018)

Today marks the official start of my glorious Thanksgiving Break.  My sage advice—to sacrifice Columbus Day as a day off in exchange for an entire week of freedom for Thanksgiving—has apparently, via osmosis, found its way to my school’s administration, and after slogging it out for three months, we’re finally reaping the benefits of that sacrifice.

This past weekend was also the first time in a few weeks I did not have to travel out of town for one reason or another, so I have watched a lot of movies on Shudder—the good, the bad, and the forgettable (I also managed to get in a late-night session of Civilization VI, eschewing my most recent playthrough as the Celts and cranking up a new run as the Incan Empire, which is slowly expanding across South America at the time of this writing).  I managed to catch two flicks with the word “Ghostland” in their titles, one memorable and somewhat good, the other absolutely terrible:  2021’s Prisoners of Ghostland and 2018’s Incident in a Ghostland, respectively.

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Lazy Sunday CIV: Time

Today we’re back onto Daylight Saving Time, so we’ve lost an hour of sleep and can enjoy a more hours of sunlight.  I tend to enjoy nighttime, but going off of Daylight Saving Time is horrible—there are days when, like an Alaskan in January, I don’t see the sun.

Whilst working the SAT yesterday morning, colleagues were discussing the time change, with all the usual remarks:  “we should stay on it forever!” or “we can’t control time.”  I fellow teacher said, “Time is a manmade concept,” to which I replied, “Yep—that’s why I only date twenty-one-year olds.”  That elicited some amused laughter, even though that joke is (for better or for worse) not true.

In thinking about time—our most valuable commodity, as we all run out of it and don’t know how much of it we have—I looked back at some posts loosely related to the concept.  In honor of our arbitrary shifting of the clock one hour into the future, allow me to present them to you this abbreviated Sunday:

  • Meetings are (Usually) a Waste of Time” – I don’t like meetings, which is funny, because I ran for a position that literally requires me to attend one once a month.  But I find most meetings are merely an opportunity for administrative grandstanding, and to prove that the bureaucracy serves a purpose.  Of course, they accomplish the exact opposite.  Good, thirty-minute meetings are useful for coordinating a team each week, but otherwise, let people get on with their day and get their work done.
  • Ocarina of Time Soundtrack Review” – This post about the legendary Ocarina of Time soundtrack doesn’t have much to do with time as a concept, but it music is all about the placement of beautiful notes—harmonies and melodies—against the canvas of time.  Pretty poetic, eh?
  • New Mustang is a Sign of the Times” (and “TBT: New Mustang is a Sign of the Times“) – No Mustang should ever be an electric vehicle.  That’s pretty much the gist of this piece, and the concept that everything is awesome is in decline.  I hope I’m wrong, but, c’mon—don’t make a Mustang into an electric car.
  • Five Dollar Friday: The Elites and a Giant Clock” – I’ll be honest, this was a post where I was really grasping for some content.  I’m intrigued by the gigantic, ten-thousand year clock Bezos is funding in the desert, though, and what it says about our elites.

Well, that’s it.  Take some time—giggity—to relax today.  Enjoy the sunshine!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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Rationing and Abundance

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Thanksgiving and related observations have been a running theme this week.  Thanksgiving reminds us of how much abundance we truly have.  It’s hard not to recognize when there are tables full of fattening, succulent dishes, enough to rival the feasts of medieval kings.

In spite of that marvelous abundance, however, rationing is still very much a reality.  The inescapable fact of economics—indeed, the whole purpose of the field—is that there are only so many resources to go around, and societies struggle to figure out how best to allocate those resources.

This problem is particularly true when it comes to our most valuable resource:  time.

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