Justin Germino Ramblings

Happiness is a state of mind, and this means that people as individuals have control over whether they are happy or want to be happy. Money doesn’t make people happy by itself, nor does love make people happy. It is the person themselves who finds happiness in love, or happiness in wealth. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, there are people who don’t need money to be happy and others who don’t need love to be happy. Some people are happy playing games, others are happy with their jobs, but we are not measuring the individual things that make us happy but are we happy as people overall.

So ask yourself this, are you happy?

Think about why you are happy, what makes you happy? What culmination of things or experiences inspire or create your happiness, or is it just that you are a happy person overall? Happiness is a state of mind, and people don’t need reasons to be happy. Sure we can find unhappiness in plenty of things like job stress, financial issues, relationship problems and worse. But again individual events and circumstances though they can affect your state of mind cannot change whether you are “generally” happy overall in your life.

If you are not happy overall, and I mean over the past thirty days if you aren’t generally happy for over 50% of them then I would think it is time to re-evaluate your sources of happiness and find out what needs to bring you to feeling better. Contentment is a form of happiness, having no complaints and being content is like a lion who is content to sleep after a long feast, so if you are just content without any direct sources of unpleasantness or unhappiness, then you can consider yourself well, if not overly happy.

When examining what makes you happy or unhappy remember that circumstances can change at anytime, if you have a good job and are unhappy, knowing that others are out of work and in dire financial circumstances can change your perspective of being unhappy with what you currently do. The same can apply by using perspective to analyze your other sources of unhappiness, this is why happiness is a state of mind. One person can be happy in the same situation as another person who is unhappy in that situation. This doesn’t assume any chemical or biological tendency toward depression which could be a psychological, emotional or chemical imbalance, but assumes that all that is needed is a perspective change to help see that there may be happiness without you even realizing it, just by changing your perspective.

-Justin Germino

I am going to see Avatar right after work on Friday night as it looks like one spectacular movie. I can’t wait to see what James Cameron has done, after all he was the director of Aliens which was one of my all time favorite movies. See the HD trailer and let me know if you think this will be a blockbuster or a dud?

The special effects look mind boggling, even if the story of humans invading an alien world are similar to the movie Battle For Terra which was released in early 2009.

-Justin Germino

Now that my six year old and three year old are sharing the same room and sleeping in a bunk bed it takes much longer to get the kids to go to sleep. When our youngest was still in a crib and the oldest sleeping in his own separate room they didn’t have the ability tease, joke or annoy each other while they were tucked in their separate sleeping area’s and bid goodnight. Now they share the same room and will spend the whole first hour talking, whispering, joking and annoying each other. This means my boys who previously were sound asleep by 7:30pm are now up until almost 8:30pm or 9pm and really it is the toddler who keeps the older brother awake.

My three year old has suddenly developed fears of monsters, noises since transitioning to sleeping in his brothers bed last week and we know he is a little anxious and scared to be going through this major life change for him. Hopefully as it becomes more routine and he gets completely used to the fact that now he sleeps in a big boy bed, he will settle down and have an easier time of falling asleep without the fear that monsters are lurking behind closet doors.

What amazes me most about being a parent is how completely different two children can be when they come from the same two parents. They have an array of unique traits and though they play some of the same games together, because they are three years apart and the youngest is still not able to play some of the same things as the six year old, they still manage to find some common ground.

-Justin Germino

I have noticed some terrible patterns on Amazon.com while shopping this holiday season lately and that is they allow their “affiliates” to greatly mark up product prices for sale when inventory is low and the products can’t be found elsewhere. For many products and this is especially true of Children’s toys you can find the Amazon.com price listed as 2-5x higher than the products retail value from the manufacturer or a competing site. Though the product is out of stock at the other stores, an Amazon.com store or subsidiary will have it in stock and sell it for these outrageous rates and prey upon people who are desperate to buy the product.

I expect to see this from eBay where people action and sell times for whatever they want, but this means that Amazon.com is no longer reliable for looking for the best prices on items and this only means that you have to check other sources first. It used to be that Amazon.com almost always carried the best prices on items and they still do on many items, but you just can’t trust their item prices anymore as a result of these recent trends. Amazon.com should deny partner companies from listing product prices higher than say 20% of the retail value of the product, they should do this to help cut down on price gauging.

-Justin Germino

I was not too happy when two days ago I received letters from my Health Insurance company that a laptop was missing from the company property that contained sensitive information for my two kids, my wife and I. The company sent an official letter with an apology and informing us that the risk was low but still could exist and we were provided with 1 year free service to a credit monitoring program. This is the second time in two years that an organization has lost sensitive data and we were provided with a monitoring program access as a result of the company goof up.

When a company does have a security breach or data missing that it cannot account for, it is absolutely the right decision (and required by law depending on the type of company and data) to notify its customers immediately and it is a good step in providing free credit monitoring service as a means to be proactive. I do however think 1 year is not sufficient since the data stolen may be found and used anytime after the missing date, if you were only monitoring your credit for one year and the data was found and used three years later you wouldn’t notice unless you were doing your own credit monitoring (which I highly recommend everyone should do).

This just means I am now under multiple credit monitoring programs as I sign up to each one when issues like this occur and I like to make sure to keep on top of my credit reports.

-Justin Germino

Earlier this week on TNT premiered a new show called Men of a Certain Age which I watched right after The Closer. This show which is co-created by Ray Romano is about three men in their mid to late forties who have been friends since they were kids (as is shown by the title sequence). While I expected the show to be very funny, I was surprised by how down to earth and downright “real” the show is.

Each character in the show has a particular rut or issue that they are dealing with in their lives, and this makes each character very human and relatable to most audience members. Ray Romano plays Joe who is a party store owner recently separated from his wife and is still living out of a hotel room. He wants to reconnect with his wife, but we learn in the first episode his gambling addiction has something to do with the separation though more isn’t revealed just yet.

Scott Bakula plays Terry who is an aspiring actor who has had only a few minor successes with TV roles and Television commercials. He is picky about what roles he wants to take and as a result hasn’t had much work in recent times. He is also the only one of the three men who is single and a bit of a player with the ladies as compared to the other two who are married. We do however see his frailty as he struggles to become a successful actor and even taking tips from a coffee shop waitress/writer.

Finally Andre Braugher who also played Dr. House’s Psychiatric Therapist on House does a fantastic job as a man on the verge of turning fifty with three kids (one a baby and the other two a little older). He works at his fathers car dealership and just expects to take over when his father retires, but in the first episode realizes his father is unhappy and disappointed with him which leads him to nearly break in emotional despair.

All three characters have frailty and the often discuss life issues and the events going on around them, it is something unlike most other shows on television and there is no escapism happy drama of unreality here, but instead three friends who sometimes can barely stand each other trying to make their way in life and find happiness in the situations they are living in.

There are some comical moments scattered about and the humor can range from light hearted and funny, to a sad and dark humor depending on the situation.

No doubt about it Men of a Certain Age is something different on television and as a male in my early thirties I can already relate in some ways to some of these characters in my own life. The only complaint I may have about this show is that it is almost like watching somebody’s real life in all its unpleasant and sad existence and most of the times I watch TV for fun escapism from the real world. This however is a minor complaint and the show is definitely worth checking out if you are looking for something refreshingly different.

One other note, in the pilot episode that aired on TNT, the network actually broadcast SH!T five times in the pilot episode, I actually was surprised that the network broadcasts don’t censor language, I thought they were bound by the same FCC rules as the local stations but apparently not.

-Justin Germino

My Water bill has been greatly inflated lately and this is in part to Arizona having to comply with the new federal guidelines on Arsenic safety. Arizona had among the highest levels of arsenic in the drinking water supply at almost 50 parts per billion which used to be the former limit set by the Food and Drug Administration. Now it is 25 parts per billion and all water companies have to upgrade and filter the water more efficiently to reduce the arsenic levels in the water supply. This results in an “arsenic surcharge” on most Arizona water company bills which inflates the water bill for having safer drinking water.

This wasn’t my only issue, I noticed that my water bill showed my house having a 180% increase in water usage over the past two months from the same two months last year. I don’t have any runny toilets, faucets or drips that I can find and I can’t account for why my water meter would show my house using almost 3x the amount of water these last two months. I am going to have to call the water company and get the meter checked out.

-Justin Germino

With USA Networks Monk being over I had to reflect that this was one of the best TV shows over the past few years. Tony Shalhoub was so convincing and good as the obsessive compulsive detective it will be hard to see him in any other role without expecting him to stutter, shift or touch objects as he walks past them. The series finale of Monk was brilliantly done and answered all the questions that viewers have had over the past years, including what happened to Trudy and closing the mystery of what happened to her twelve years ago.

The show left the ending wide open and easily could have been continued if Tony Shalhoub wanted to pick up and continue the show, but I heard he was tired of playing the same character after five years and was ready to move on to other roles. I wonder if there will be a Monk movie?

-Justin Germino

Not too long ago my kids were watching a show on the Disney Channel and I sat down with them to see what the Phineas and Ferb show is all about. I was pleasantly surprised just how much I enjoyed this show myself and often will sit and watch new episodes I hadn’t seen before even if I am by myself sometimes. The show is all about two brothers “Phineas and Ferb” on their summer vacation from school, each day they decide to do something new and use their brilliant minds to create some of the most complex and imaginative gadgets, inventions and have incredible adventures. Meanwhile their older sister Candace is often trying to “Bust” them by having mom catch the boys doing something incredible, though in the later episodes Candace often joins her brothers and/or appreciates the things they do.

The show also has their pet Platypus named Perry who is a secret agent on the side. Perry constantly thwarts the evil genius Dr. Doofenshmirtz, which features some of the most oddball and humorous side plots in the episodes. The sheer genius behind what the writers come up with make me laugh just writing this review. What I really like about the show is that there is no real violence, language, horror, or anything to object to. It keeps the entertainment pure, fun and simple without needing to add any “shock” value to the show. The innocent minds of the show and how everything fits is the shows charm, and since I have two sons the antics of Phineas and Ferb remind me of how my own boys interface with each other when they play as well as bring back some of my own childhood memories with my brother.

Without a doubt Phineas and Ferb is one of the best shows on the Disney channel and is one of the best kids shows I have seen, it is entertaining for three year olds up to eighty year olds, and at thirty two years of age I catch as many of them as I can because they are pure and simple fun.

Here is a video clip of Phineas and Ferb singing to have Perry come home:

-Justin Germino