By the way:

• I'm usually not a big fan of movies that rely on 11th hour backfill to assemble all the missing pieces, but Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 12 are the exceptions. I like that group a lot.
• No matter how hard I try, no matter how many times I try, I just can't beat Nikki at gin. And it's driving me absolutely batty. I've played "my last game" of it so many times that when I tell her I've played my last game, I get sinister giggles in response. But this time I mean it. I've made the penultimate move in that game for the last time.
• I think the lilacs that line our driveway took steroids in the offseason. There are so many fat, fragrant buds this year that it's like...it's like...it's like the perfect simile. Any foul odors within fifty feet of them are vanquished—I know because I've tested it. And the crazy thing is, they actually smell like purple, too.

• I've been looking through my old college notebooks, which I saved mainly for the doodles but the notes have proven more interesting over time. I flip the pages and chuckle at the penchant I had for jotting down song titles and lyrics. I'm looking through a window of time at all the songs that were stuck in my head during Philosophy 300, English 203, etc.
• I don't like Hollywood much, I really dislike politics, but most of all I dislike Hollywood politics.
• I hit 14 of 18 greens in regulation today. Yes, quite good. Problem is, I had FORTY-FIVE putts. Yes, that's right. FORTY-FIVE. You're reading this correctly. 45. Putts. A personal record in maddening suckage on the greens. Twenty-five on the front nine. I was begging Todd to kill me.
• Ever had one of those moments when you suddenly realize you've changed dramatically in some way, but it didn't occur to you until that moment because the change was so subtle and gradual? While flipping happily through the May issue of This Old House, it occurred to me that for years I haven't picked up one of those music/pop culture magazines that was a staple of my twenties. Not because Rolling Stone started sucking long ago; I just have no interest in them. Not SPIN, not RS, not CMJ, NME, or Q. I'd rather read about spring de-thatching techniques and look at before/after kitchen shots. Soon I'll be whittling on a porch rocking chair, yammering.

National Geographic has a neat little application that serves as a teaser for their two hour special on May 30th. (Click Launch Interactive.) Sit back and let the imagination take control. It's an interesting ride. That upcoming special looks pretty good, too.

This commercial is a couple years old, but I still love watching it. Tell me this isn't the coolest commercial ever. Go ahead, tell me. (Gotta love Rube Goldbergs.)

The best part of this headline is "baffles scientists". I just love that. I'll be following this one.

Maybe The Matrix was on to something.

Looks like somebody won the "find a blimp" contest.

South Korea leading the way in cell therapeutics? Well done, Seoul. But I hate to think that U.S. scientists will have their hands tied on this because of politics. I think Bush is wrong on stem cells and it's frustrating that he's determined to delay the inevitable. It's going to happen, George. Don't put American scientists behind the 8-ball. (Why does all the talk focus on the concern about cloning humans, as if we're going to see carbon copies of Adonis walking the streets...? Isn't this about the ability to grow replacement tissue and finally get a leg up on our most debilitating diseases?)

How about real-time earthquake forecasting?

The Onion's new "News in Pictures" section is hilarious. Check it out. #6 kills me.

Not Cool. Not At All.

When CNN determines that American Idol merits a front-page headline, you realize that you really are in the twilight zone.

I thought I was done with this, but this subject is like a Medusa head. Are dark corners of the American media determined to help create another 9/11? I don't know, but it seems as if I'm forced to ask myself this at least weekly. And then there's the ACLU. Hiding behind their false platform of civil liberties, you have to wonder what really motivates this group. You have to wonder what their real goals are. Again, we have the IMPLICIT message that the strategic claims of terrorist prisoners are true, while the word of the U.S. military is not to be trusted. I hope the ACLU doesn't lull the world into thinking that they are all about justice and freedom. They have an ugly underneath.

I once did some volunteer work for Amnesty International, back in the early 90s. They've done some good things. But they're not all good, either. Likening Guantanamo Bay to a gulag should piss off any American possessing more than a limbic system. This is such bullshit. I'm getting so sick of this anti-American BS all over the media. Gee, Amnesty...why didn't you say anything about Saddam's torture camps that terrorized its citizens for decades?

If you need more evidence that the (worldwide) media is out of control, full of shit, and determined to undermine the U.S., Google Iraq torture camps and count how many articles there are on Saddam's (former) torture camps versus articles that either implicitly or blatantly bash the U.S. military for their treatment of captured terrorists.

The world is going insane.

Labels: neat-o

The world is teeming with shitheads. Shitheads of all kinds. Shitheads in impressive positions who suck at what they do and yet there they remain, as if officially tasked with sucking.

Curtains...

• At the time, I didn't say anything about the Looney Toons "update" because I was too horrified to form coherent sentences. I don't know what has come of this, but the people responsible should have been sacked. You don't fuck with Bugs.
• This is Newsweek's pathetic resolution to their shady-as-hell Koran story, which, curiously, is not being investigated. You want a dangerous situation? Imagine a world wherein strategic claims made by military prisoners are given more weight than the claims of the U.S. military. Too little, too late, Newsweek. "Sources" should be sacked.
• The St. Jude Educational Institute prevented a graduate from participating in her commencement ceremony. The crime? Being pregnant. Someone at St. Jude's is a reeeaal shithead. Sack 'em.
• We're used to seeing our shithead media take a marginally important story and run with it for days...and days...and days...and now, don't be surprised if this kind of follow-up opportunism becomes normalized. Achtung shitheads: Since you're running your own businesses, please go ahead and sack yourselves.
• Netscape. One of the first Internet companies. Tons o' bucks. Many bright, capable people. And none of them were hired to design and implement their Website. These Flash modules are horrid. The text is barely readable, the application's general usability scores a D-, and their archive structure is pitiful. If you bookmark an article and try to get back to it two weeks later, you get a Page Not Found error. Somebody designed it that way. Sack 'em.
• You heard about the runaway bride for days, you heard about Terri Schiavo for weeks, but did you ever hear about this? I didn't think so. Many sackings are in order here. Where to begin?
• Every music biz exec. Seriously, every one of 'em. Sack 'em.

Labels: commentary

Went to see Star Wars the other night with a group of friends who share a bond that only makes sense to those who share in it. Like Monty Python, you either get Star Wars or you don't. If it was a big deal to you as a kid, it matters. If it wasn't, it doesn't.

I know many people who have absolutely no interest in any fantasy film. They can't get past the robots and creatures and lasers and they don't find the stories compelling. I can understand that. The same would probably be true for me if I hadn't grown up with Star Wars. If it wasn't a big part of my childhood, today I'd hear the cornball dialogue and try to enjoy it as I would a Zucker brothers film. I'd bug the guy next to me with observations like, "hey, they're in space—those explosions can't make sound!" I'd pick apart the goofy moments and curiously placed modern idioms and ask incessantly, "this is camp, right?" (The first three Star Wars "classics" have plenty of silly moments, but they didn't strike us that way as a kid, so they don't bother us now.)

To most guys in my generation, Star Wars was everything from 1977 to about 1984. In that span, practically every toy I acquired with my meager allowance was Star Wars related. I had Darth's Tie fighter, an X-wing, the Millennium Falcon, two Chewbaccas (I melted one with a magnifying glass), a Vader, a land speeder, three stormtroopers, and a Han Solo. Never had a Luke, but my friend Jim across the street did. In fact, he had just about every piece of Star Wars merchandise that I didn't have, and vice-versa. We planned it that way.

Half the U.S. population considers Star Wars fans nerds, the kinda guys who dress up as bounty hunters and pitch a tent in line six days in advance of the opening night and debate The Force as spirituality vs. paranormal biology. For these folks, the nerd tag fits. And they're fine with that, too.

But if you were under fourteen when Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back hit, more than likely, this saga is a part of you. Star Wars can never mean as much to the kids that grew up with Episode I (1999) or Episode II (2002) as it does the kids who were too young for disco and had Star Wars lunchboxes and lined up their (original) action figures on their dresser. Star Wars was ground-breaking then. It changed everything. Episodes I and II changed nothing. It didn't set any precedents. Kids were already desensitized to the kind of wow factor they offered.

I was looking forward to Revenge of the Sith, and for the first time in more than two decades, Star Wars didn't disappoint. I don't want to add to the 2,453,238 reviews out there, so to sum it up: Episodes I and II were disappointing on many levels and satisfying on a few. Episode III is satisfying on many levels and disappointing on a few. And that's about all I could have asked for.

It's not too often that you hear a story so unusual that, if it was presented as a movie plot, you'd say pfffttt. A story such as:

An anonymous, mute, and distressed young man found in a dripping wet suit, with all the tags of his clothes cut off. The man has absolutely no identifying papers of any kind. He's brought to a hospital where he proceeds to make a pretty good sketch of a piano, so they take him to one and he quickly belts out Tchaikovsky.

Hey, it's true.

So how will it end? It's the sort of thing that you hope will become a classic tale of a gentle, meek, and mysterious guy who emerges out of nowhere with no identification and no one missing or claiming knowledge of him, completely mute but eager to compose songs that have the power to heal all sorts of diseases, solve centuries-old land disputes in the Middle East, make bad guys worldwide morph into pillars of humanity, and make all six billion of us want to hold hands.

If it turns out to be little more than some guy's LSD bender, I'll be awfully disappointed.

Theories abound over this curious orb found in Google's satellite data. One of those new gray M&Ms, perhaps?

Pissed

I don't like writing about these things, I really don't, but I'm so *pissed* about this Newsweek thing, I need to let off some steam. I've officially had it with our media. We're in desperate need of a real media revolution (the news-blogosphere isn't cutting it, it seems to be creating more enclaves of singular thought succeeding only in confirmation bias). It's not just the careless publishing of an unsubstantiated report, or the suspiciously "anonymous" source, but Newsweek's chickenshit intial response, the reluctance between the lines in their official retraction, and their cavalier attitude about the whole thing, including the fact that it led directly to people being killed.

At its core, the problem is activism in journalism. Assholes with an agenda who think they're smarter than the next guy or girl and drum up stories that they know will stir the geopolitical acid bath—for the sake of their own political agenda, which opens up opportunities in their industry of like-minded activists. Sound like something you want to watch? Journalism was supposed to be about reporting facts so that we can keep abreast of what's happening in our world. Not what should or should not happen, but what happened or is happening. Punditry is another thing, a useful thing. Just don't disguise it as the Evening News.

On a related note, hearing that Dan Rather has received a Peabody Award really hits the gag reflex. The machine is so blatant these days it's laughable. But not exactly funny.

Last night, thumbing through the channels to find something good to fall asleep to, I stumbled on an old favorite, Witness. Remember Witness? 1985, Harrison Ford, the Amish, etc.? Such a great movie. Oddly enough, it was on the Spike channel, which means that a scene depicting an Amish community at a barn raising picnic cut immediately to a Girls Gone Wild commercial. It was a fascinating split-second trip through time and cultural evolution. Or devolution.

I'm no Roger Ebert, but the sexual tension between John Book and Rachel Lapp is as good as it gets in film. And unlike most films, the tension is never resolved in some cliché missionary fluid exchange. It's resolved in an awkward but poignant parting without words. Perfect. And I was never a big Kelly McGillis fan, but shit she's beautiful in that film. Maybe it's the bonnet.

It's a movie that's easy on the eyes and ears: The sprawling farm, plain clothes, the subdued colors, even the long, whispery drones of the all-synth soundtrack seduces you into an odd serenity. I like the blue shirts and suspenders. I like the beards and the hats. And that sense of community...if it doesn't elicit a wistful sigh from you, you're hardened. Don't know 'boutchoo, but I think it's awfully nice just knowing that these people, with their almost total disengagement from modern society, are still thriving. And largely undisturbed.

When little Samuel rings that bell at the end and all the townsfolk come to their aid, whew...I think I got bit misty. A community that strong is just so alien to us. I don't know. I guess I'd just like to help raise a barn for each and every one my friends. Maybe someday.

If you haven't seen Witness, dig it up.

Labels: at home, commentary

So I ask Nik if she wants me to make her a sandwich to take to work tomorrow and she says yes. During assembly I notice that the only bread that's left are the end pieces—whole grain bookends, all nice n' yummy brown. Then I thought, wait a minute...no way is Nik going to accept the end pieces, even if they're all we have. I don't know why I figured this—end pieces had never come up in conversation in the 7 years we've known each other.

But it occurred to me that:

1. I had never seen her eat an end piece, and
2. We do tend to throw away quite a few stale end pieces, and
3. It's just so Nikki to not like end pieces.

So I asked, "All we have left are the end pieces. Is that okay?" Her response was a disappointed "Are you frickin' kidding me?", with volume. And no, the frickin' isn't a euphemism—she's a "frickin'" girl. I'd like to explore how frickin' evolved in our lexicon, but another time.

By "we", she of course meant her family, growing up. Okay, no big deal. They didn't take to end pieces. I thought it was hilarious but in a few seconds I realized that I'm the one that's most likely in the minority here. As nonsensical as it is to discard the end pieces of a perfectly good loaf of bread, as if they're somehow inferior or unworthy of human consumption, I have a feeling it's the norm out there.

So, she preferred plain turkey roll-ups to a more complete turkey sandwich made with end pieces. Is there a voice through the haze that can tell me I'm not alone in thinking this is just a weebit off? As common as it might be, it's nuts.

I admit I can't say that I liked end pieces growing up, but it's more a question of acceptance than preference. While rolling up sections of turkey breast in Mediocre Catered Tray Format, a little self-examination on this issue led me to an interesting realization: The fact that there were only two end pieces left in the bag meant that I too had been unconsciously reaching over the first end piece for the elite slices. I have absolutely no problem eating end pieces, and yet I too am apparently in the habit of treating them as lesser bread.

In grade school I know my mother made me many a bag lunch of peanut butter and jelly encased in end pieces. (Roman Meal was my parents' brand of choice. Most kids had sandwiches framed with Wonder bread, and I recall many had their crusts cut off. I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now. Come to think of it, I should probably thank my mom for this wee facet of my life, but I digress.) When we had French or Italian bread, this crustism didn't exist—perhaps because you can't avoid the crust and ultimately learn to accept it, and almost inevitably come to love it. Hey, I don't know.

But I can't let this go on just mine and Nik's breadview. This has really fueled my curiosity about end piece attitudes. Do you eat 'em? Toss 'em? Give them to the birds? The dog? I have to know.

Labels: at home

...and I'm not even French. Zut alors!

Remember that giant cheeseburger story from a while ago—you know, the picture of the guy with the helmet eating a burger bigger than his head? Well, looks like CNN is playing catch-up. Yawn...that was soooo eight weeks ago...

We don't know our neighbors very well. It has only been a couple years, but still. Funny how the concept of neighborhoods has changed over the last fifty years. My grandparents knew everyone on their street and would play cards with half of them. My parents were active friends with two of the families on our 16-house street, chat-outside-with-the-mowers-running friends with two others, and they knew everyone else by first name. I don't know my neighbors' names except for the couple next door. I know the rest only by their habits: The old couple next door—the other next door—who only come outside to garden; the 45-ish woman across the street who walks her golden retriever promptly at 5:30 p.m. every day; the guy next to her who always has a sprinkler running, rain or shine.

I just hope they don't know me as the guy who runs down the street after his leashless dog, with a bag of shit swinging in his hand.

I don't know why I'm telling you this, and I suspect I'll take a ribbing for it, but...I can handle that....

...okay...

...I'm not sure why, but...

...but...

There's just something about the Home Depot theme song that gives me an odd sense of comfort and warmth. There, I've said it.

First there was the finger in the chili, which was a case of fraud...and still no answers as to whose finger it was. Then came the finger in the custard, and the quote "I'll just put it in my mouth and...see what it is." The custard company claims that it is indeed an employee's lost digit. (Which of course begs the question, why didn't they "stop the presses", clean out all the product and start over again...like their customers—and the FDA—surely would have wanted them to do...?) But the strangest part of all this fingerstuff is that the guy who found the finger in his soft serve doesn't want to give it up. I'll take 10:1 odds that this fingertip finds its way to Ebay within two weeks. Any takers?

I recently stumbled on a great blog called 10mph.com. It's mainly about an upcoming film, 10mph, by two guys who decided to give up their day jobs to ride a Segway across the country and document their experiences. Which reminds me...Jason, Todd, Andy and I were going to make a film once. At one point, Jason and I even had bits of script on napkins. And we had a newspaper ad for someone selling a Hi-8 camera. But we never gave up our day jobs. The napkins are all there is to show for it, and they're most likely in a landfill.

A new meme is emerging: Googlesat. I mentioned this a little while ago, and Nugatory posted an interesting link about it. Armed with the new Google satellite search, some people are finding some vewwy vewwy intewesting things out yonder in the Nevada desert and elsewhere. (Reminder: use Internet Explorer.) Contests are already raging in offices (Ahem! Get to work!) and homes around the world. Pick a target, such as a plane in flight or car crash or fire. First one to find one in Google's massive satellite data wins. So....

How about a hot air balloon? Elephant? Herd of buffalo? Careful sifting through that satellite data, though—it's easy to get stuck in a time warp. But just look at that continental shelf in the Atlantic...stunning!

Many scientists—even mainstream scientists—now consider the concept of life on Mars as more reality than fantasy. Another Italian planetary scientist shifts the paradigm out of first gear...

Daniel Tammet, an autistic savant, reveals how truly amazing the human mind is. We already knew that there's much we don't yet understand about the mind, but this guy's story takes it to another level. That's an immense, mysterious universe there on your shoulders. If we could just tap into the whole thing...

Bananas. Could there be a more perfect food? I mean, they're the perfect snack size, they're perfectly encased in an easy-to-use, biodegradable wrapper, they come in bunches that are practical and convenient, and by Jove they're good for ya. And when they go bad, you make bread out of 'em. With their slippery peel, they've even played a large role in comic books and slapstick. What other fruit can say all this? If there's even an election for King of Fruit, vote bananas. Avocados will be secretary of seeds.

This might be the most ridiculous charge ever slapped on anyone, ever.

I heard the story of the exploding toads last week and I'm not sure why I didn't bring it up, but more and more news outlets have picked up the story, and there's still no satisfactory explanation. I just love it when a good mystery baffles the brainiacs.