Month: September 2002

RL paused and looked over at Jamie. He rubbed his chin, as if that morning’s shave hadn’t been close enough, and pursed his lips, made a tight sucking sound. The cars on the freeway roared past them and RL leaned in to be a little closer.

“Well as you can imagine, the nephew was more than a little surprised. Not at the secret or that another successful family had come from their little village on Sicily. But he couldn’t understand why his uncle was letting him in on this information. So he asked, ‘That is astonishing, uncle, truly good fortune.Respectfully, though, I must ask why you are telling me about it now.’

“‘Joseph,’ the uncle answered, ‘I am telling you because I wonder if you can make something more out of this than your father or I have. We must be very careful to use this precious thing as little as possible so that it is never discovered and we never bring shame to our friends and their family. Few times we have had favors from these men, yes, but important ones. Times are changing though, I have seen many things in the last decade that I never expected. Change has come to this thing of ours and we would be well advised to find a new way to continue. So I tell you because you have studied things very different from what your father and I, and all our friends to tell the truth, know anything about.

“‘Now your education is complete and you come home to join with us. We are very proud of what you have achieved, even if these machines are a mystery to us. I have been thinking that perhaps you can find ways to help us move beyond our troubles, perhaps these new machines can help, but I want you to know of all the important resources that we possess so that you may do your best.’

“‘Uncle,’ Joseph said, ‘I thank you for your confidence and trust. I will do my best to live up to them. This brings to mind a saying my professors had: garbage in, garbage out. I know, I know, what does trash have to do with computers? But this simply means that if you put bad information into a calculation, you cannot end up with a good result.'”

RL said that the two men shook hands and parted, the younger wanting time to sleep and ponder his new assignment. And surprising to his family, thogh it would not have surprised his teachers, he approached the task as if he were researching and writing a new thesis for school rather than a business plan to modernize La Cosa Nostra. He went to the office with his father, went on rounds with his uncle, sat in on meetings they had with other capos. Joseph, or Little Joe as he was called, spent the summer listening to music his family would never appreciate and devising the most brilliant criminal business model anyone had ever thought of.

This one is sure to be all over the web, email and blogs, but still: Viking kittens. A great Flash animation by Joel Veitch using Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant’s Song as its soundtrack. And you get Veitch’s version of the always misunderstood lyrics. After watching I was sitting here plotzing for…well…minutes. [via Metafilter]

One category of food that most people scream about giving up when confronted with the Atkins diet is bread. I didn’t scream but I always answered with that when asked my favorite food. So it’s with relief that I can tell you that there now are reasonable choices for us. In the last two weeks we made batches of blueberry and banana nut muffins (both yummy) and country white bread. Note that all these mixes are not cheap: we got a dozen muffins in each batch for $5/box and the bread, which makes one medium loaf, is $6. Each muffin or slice is only 2-3 grams of carbs, though, so we’re looking at sandwiches for lunch tomorrow!

The bread’s just out of the oven, so I’ll update on the taste later, but I can tell you it looks decent. See for yourself:

My plan for dinner tonight is this: one slice of the bread toasted, as a base; next layer is the sauteed (with garlic) cap of a portobello mushroom; and the topping is a small omelette filled with the mushroom stems chopped into small pieces, a little oregano and parmesan cheese for topping.

Update, 8:50 p.m.: Well, the dish came out almost exactly as planned though I forgot to butter the toast. Still, cap was moist enough and I did use a little butter in sauteeing them. Here’s what it looked like (with a couple of bites alread in the Sweet One’s tummy):

Winterspeak (Zimran Ahmed), a very competent economist and techhead, gets the nitty gritty on Xbox.

The new Jackie Chan flick, The Tuxedo, opened yesterday and frankly I expected it to steamroll Reese Witherspoon’s Sweet Home Alabama. Neither got great reviews but the Chan appeal, with Jennifer Love Hewitt providing the hottie factor, should have done the job. Surprise, surprise because according to Box Office Mojo, the Southern fried romance walloped this one on opening night, 12.8 to 4.5 (millions).

We went with Chan, though, and our theater at a lunch time showing was mostly full and a friend reported being left in the cold by a sell out in Daly City. And though the reviewers had nothing good to say about The Tuxedo, we enjoyed ourselves and had many laughs. Chan is 48 years old now, still able to outfight the baddies but willing to take it easy if it won’t hurt the film. Regardless of what was written, Chan made reasonable choices in this film.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not the film of the year of even the best film I saw this month. It is, however, funny and creative. There’s one scene in particular I’m thinking of here, where Hewitt is in her office on the phone with Chan and one of her coworkers keeps holding up “I love you” notes to her, which she crumples and tosses. Screenwriter Michael Leeson has a very impressive oevre going back to Love, American Style and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, so that’s not too surprising.

Recommended for the fun

After a few weeks off channels that I get, mostly draws that Liverpool Football Club should have won, Fox Sports World finally came through with a Saturday match on the road at Manchester city that was no trouble at all and we ended up on top 3-0. The best thing about the afternoon, against a team fresh up from Division One, was Michael Owen finally getting the ball to go in the net; after getting only one goal (and that on a penalty shot) in the first ten games of the year, Number 10 scored all his side’s tallies for a hat trick.

Abel Xavier was nowhere to be seen, not even on the substitute list, and manager Gerard Houllier had a surprise: he also benched defender Stephen Henchoz, moved Jimmy Traore into center to partner with captain Sammi Hyypia, and moved John Arne Riise to Traore’s left defensive spot. Henchoz was reportedly out due to a strained hamstring. Emile Heskey stayed in midfield and Milan Baros took the other striker spot.

Baros and Owen have major speed and gave the Man city defense troubles all afternoon, though Baros couldn’t find the ball in the second half and made way at 70 minutes for El Hadji Diouf. The Nigerian didn’t score but did show significant improvement in effort from the beginning of the season and after four games on the bench one wonders if he’ll be back alongside Owen in the starting 11 on Wednesday as the Reds host Spartak Moscow in a must-win Champions League game.

Besides Owen, props have to go out to Dietmar Hamann and Danny Murphy in midfield, Riise, Hyypia, and Traore on the backline, and, without question, Jerzy Dudek in goal. Dudek took two major elbows to the head from MCFC’s Marc-Vivien Foe and almost had to leave the game but instead stayed on to bring another clean sheet into the locker room.

The win keeps the Reds second in the Premiership behind Arsenal (who won 4-1 on the road at Leeds) and four points ahead of number three Middlesboro and Manchester United. Only Arsenal and Liverpool have yet to lose a match this weekend; the difference in the standings is one more win for the Gunners. If the boys just hadn’t given up that last minute goal to Birmingham City earlier in the month!

Some home projects are bigger and more impressive than others. My buddy Byron, for example, has done some major ones: underground lawn sprinkler system; a very large, multi-level back deck; a 8×10 shed in the same backyard; hardwood flooring in his entryway and short staircase; and, even some wood furniture. All of them turned out really well, you’d be hard pressed to see where a professional could do better.

Another one of my buddies, Evan, is pretty similar though his interests tend to focus more on electronics than wood and, of course, Evan rents an apartment while Byron owns a house with backyard. Even is currently experimenting with robotics and specialized processors and controlling them via a PDA. And you should see his workroom–just jammed with computers, monitors, Black and Decker power tools, drill bits, hole punches, and more. Amazing how much he gets in there and leave enough room to still work.

So those are guys who do bigger projects. Me, on the other hand, I have little in the way of this kind of skill. What’s the opposite of mad skills? That’s me. On rare occasion, though, I do get an urge to be primitive and make something real. Not just bits in a computer. With all the cooking I’ve been doing, I decided that a small shelf in the kitchen to hold my little spice and herb bottles would be very handy. Nothing I found looking in a few stores really struck me as suitable, so Evan and I cooked up a little plan and bought the parts at OSH.

Well, yesterday and today became construction day. Evan did a little cutting and drilling, I did some work with glue, nails, and a hammer. Back to Evan for some serious sanding and a few more nails, then back home for the paint job. Right now I’m waiting for the paint to really dry and then it gets put in its final resting place, under the cabinets in my far too small kitchen. Next question: what goes in the now empty cabinet?

I’m constantly amazed, though you’d think at 41 I’d expect this crap already, by the depths to which some people will sink to ‘legitimately’ make a dollar. The latest example comes from the companies making the software that record companies hate the most: P2P file sharing companies like Morpheus, LimeWire, and BearShare. I’m not getting down on them for providing people a way to share files. Nor even for the copious advertising they send out or the spyware they install on computers along with their software (although this is the reason I have refused to install any of it).

No, today’s new levels of craptitude comes to us via the New York Times: New Software Quietly Diverts Sales Commissions. These shmendricks are setting up users’ computers so that whenever they shop at a site with an affiliate program (like Amazon’s), the commission paid goes to the file sharing company and not to the website that really referred the customer. Talk about your major sleazage!

The article quotes executives from several of the companies who claim that this was done inadvertantly (LimeWire) or was accepted by the user when the user clicked okay on the EULA (Morpheus). Merchants are trying to fight back and make sure the right company gets credited but the slimesters, like spam marketers, keep finding ways to ooze back in.

Gee, do you think the words I’ve used in this entry really express the depths of my contempt for these people?

One of the weakest points in soccer, and most disputed by teams and fans, is the offsides call. Particularly when the referee’s assistant who makes the call is not in good enough shape and consequently is a dozen yards upfield when raising his flag. Germans Invent Offsides Computer reports that the Cairos System, developed by the Frauenhofer Institute in Erlangen and Munich’s Technical University, should be available for sale next Fall. The $245,000 system uses small sensors inside the ball and the players’ shin guards to feed a piece of software that runs real time analysis; it will also tell the referee if the defender wall on a free kick is set back the minimum required distance.

Way cool!

“That’s the $64 question, pal. You just got hauled out of your comfortable, cushioned little programmer geek world and into one that’s likely to give you a huge load of trouble. I’m gonna try to give you enough to stay alive until dinner time and then we can see what comes after that.”

Jamie looked up at RL but his head would only make blocky, robotic moves and the sun glared into his eyes. RL dropped his CHP helmet, tugged off his leather gloves, and sat down, leaning against the car next to Jamie.

“There’s a little history here but I’ll try sticking to the highlights; this first part is really hard to believe but I heard it told myself from someone who was there. This starts in 1967, during the Summer of Love, when some major East Coast Sicilians got smart–really, really smart. One of the Dons’ kids had just graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering. What he really studied, though, was computers; in fact, he was probably the first mafioso to know anything about them.

“What made that important was that his uncle, another man of respect, was deep in worry. The Feds had been after the Families for years and ever since the big meet in ’58, they were beginning to break through and put people in jail. Life had always been dangerous for these guys, with wars breaking out every five years and all, but now men in the lower levels were beginning to talk, trying to save themselves from 20 years or more behind bars.

“One night the uncle and the son were sitting together after a nice meal, taking their espresso and talking. The son was full of the possibilities that computers and other brand new tech and he went on for at least an hour before the uncle cut him off. ‘This is all well and good,’ he said, ‘but how’s it going to keep us in business and out of jail?’

“The younger man had to stop and think. He knew that just computerizing the accounting would make a huge improvement and they could adapt some of the forecasting already in use by big businesses. Good but not enough, though. They needed something more, and he said so.

“This time it was the uncle’s turn to think. Finally he told his nephew a secret. One so closely held that only four other men new it. ‘You know that our family comes from Trappani, a little village a few miles west of Palermo. We came to America after the first World War, when your grandfather made a very bad decision regarding some soldiers. What we never told you, something you can never speak of to anyone but me and your father, was that there was another family that came across the ocean with us. And now, as we have become more than just a family of immigrants, so have they. One man is the Assistant US Attorney in Manhattan and another, younger, is with the US Attorney’s office in Brooklyn. And they are our friends.'”

Because we all know Bruce has my website in his RSS aggregator, right? Anyway, happy 53rd birthday to The Boss, may he celebrate many more in good health with his family.

Mona Caron has created an awesome Critical Mass 2002 Poster, go check it out if you’re a fan of ’60s Psychedlic Posters. [via Whump]

One conservative commentator, Frederica Mathewes-Green writing a guest commentary in The National Review [link via garret], states that having babies young is a good thing and the way things were until the last few decades. As I began reading this essay I thought Mathewes-Green (doesn’t even her name have an old-time feel to it?) was going to come down on the American educational system. After all, she points out that a high school education used to be sufficient for the average job and college was intended for specialized, professional careers.

However, instead she spins off into a magical world where family and members of one’s church form a support system. Strong enough, she claims, so that with prudent planning a couple can marry right after high school, both can attend college while working at night, and perhaps even start having babies before earning their diploma. The essay does get into the rising numbers of out of wedlock births (supplemented by abortions) and this, she says, is caused by trying to force randy young folks to wait for that little gold band before getting biz-zay. In particular Mathewes-Green cites Baltimore, her hometown, as having the highest percentage of out of wedlock births in the nation.

Baltimore, though, is probably as good a city as any to hold up as a model (in the negative sense) of a place where so many of the residents believe they have no hope of ever improving their circumstances. I know it was just a TV series but I still think the portrayal of it in the recent HBO series The Wire was fairly close to the reality as felt by these people. Other than drugs and violent crime there’s little money for these people and fewer jobs. No positive role models for boys other than distant professional athletes and misogynistic rap stars. So they should deprive themselves of the little pleasure to be had from sex?

For some reason this awards show is not being telecast live to the West Coast so we’ll probably know the winners before the show, which basically sucks. Anyway here are the choices from me and The Sweet One.

Award	Vivian	Bill	Critic	Winner
Comedy	Sex and the City	Friends	Friends	Friends
Actor	LeBlanc	LeBlanc	LeBlanc	Romano
Actress	Messing	Aniston	Aniston	Aniston
Drama	24	24	Six Feet Under	West Wing
Actor	Sutherland	Sutherland	Sutherland	Chicklis
Actress	Garner	Garner	Garner	Janney

Update: Clearly not a good set of predictions at all but in our defense we don’t watch Everybody Loves Raymond or West Wing.

140 years ago today, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and the NY Times was there to cover it. A major change in politics, acknowledging that all men are created equal.

“[A]ll persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

Blue Rhino, which is definitely an odd name for a company in the propane gas tank business, sells (via OSH) the tanks I use for my wonderful Weber grill. When one tank is empty, I simply take it back to the store, pay a few dollars, and get a new, full one to take home. Unfortunately, allegedly for safety reasons per one source and for profitability reasons according to another, Blue Rhino stopped making the tanks with quick release connectors and that’s the type I had. In order to continue using my grill I needed to change the hose.

This necessitated a call to Weber. They, no surprise, wanted money for this part: $19.95 plus shipping. I, who felt this change was something Weber ought to have dealt with directly, said no way and made a fuss. Fortunately for my blood pressure, Weber had told their customer service reps to offer the part at no charge to customers who made a fuss. So the other day a hose showed up.

But I will be the first to tell you that I’m not your go-to guy on anything mechanical. My big accomplishment to date has been assembling a very complex office desk, back in 1987. Generally my big skill is changing lightbulbs. So I called in the old pro to do the job but because of my shameful lack of tools, he was only able to remove the old hose. The Sweet One and I headed back to OSH for an open face wrench to match the hose’s nut (7/16″) and a full gas tank and on return home, and cushion yourself for the shock, I was able to install the new piece! I know you all want proof so here you go:

I just watched the USC-Kansas State game on TBS and god was the coverage awful. And not in a good way. Intrusive graphics, minimal replays, bad and unfunny commentators, coming back late to the action. You name it, they did it wrong. Wow!

The official site is here but for some reason I can’t really get the page to come up. YMMV.

Anyhow, this film is an attempt to bring another high profile Asian filmmaker to a more global audience and, of course, to create another action franchise but I don’t know if the grosses will be there to warrant a second film. This was not well-reviewed, to say the least, and couldn’t even surpass the aging (but leggy) Greek Wedding on opening night.

So here we have rogue DIA agent Lucy Liu taking on her boss (Gregg Henry), who apparently stole FBI Agent Antonio Banderas’ wife Talisa Soto (and child), over a deadly nanotech weapon that Henry stole. The FBI gets wind of it and Assistant Director Miguel Sandoval goes out into the field to bring Banderas back to the job; he’s been mourning Soto for seven years but hasn’t lost any of his skills or forgotten anything. The bait? The wife is still alive and after the assignment he will give up the information.

Henry and Soto are now married, with child, but Liu, all on her own, takes down a protective detail transporting the boy and sticks him in a cage in a cave. Henry has used the boy to transport the weapon across the border–in his blood–but for some reason the movie appears to take place in Vancouver. Not just shot in Vancouver, with the Canadian city standing in for, say, Chicago as it often does but the actors tell us it is Vancouver. The producers seemed to realize this little problem (why would a top American government official live in Canada?) and threw a fig on it by having Sandoval say something early on about a transnational task force but this is just one of numerous absurdities.

I mentioned a high profile Asian filmmaker and I didn’t mean just the Chinese Liu but that the director is Kaos (actually a Thai man whose full name is a mouthful: Wych Kaosayananda). The cast is very global: Soto, Sandoval, and Banderas are Latino, Henry’s top man is Scotsman Ray Park (yes, Darth Maul from Star Wars: Episode I and Toad from X-Men), and Banderas’ partner is the Chinese-Canadian actor Terry Chen. But I think the main takeaway I had from the direction was that Kaos is in love with fire or, more precisely, with flame, at least judging by the loving way he films the flames from the many, many explosions.

Liu, who is hardly some FOB Chinese star unable to speak English, has almost no lines; her body counter is higher by far than her word count. Banderas is the same stereotypical world-weary near alcoholic he so often plays. The script was written by Alan B. McElroy and a look at his oevre shows he, like so many in Hollywood, shows up for a payday but doesn’t always feel the need to put his heart into his work.

Recommended for major action or Lucy Liu fans only, but barely

Seriously. The first production factory is up and about to start rolling, with 4-5 different models:

Zero-emission driving may be more than hot air

[This email came through on one of the job lists I get today and seems worthy of a more permanent posting.]

A trusted member of the KIT List brought his recent job interview experience my attention in the hope of warning other KIT members who may be exposed to the same (or similar scams). Thankfully, that particular job didn’t come from the KIT list!

In this tough economy, there are predators out there who are hoping to take advantage of people who are desperate for jobs.

BEWARE of any company asking you to pay a fee up front to be qualified as a potential job candidate, or if you need to pay for your own training.

Also, there are some companies that are basically pyramid schemes that are setting up shop (check to see how long the company has been in their offices!), and instead of interviewing the prospective job candidates, they are “pitching” them with their sales scheme. In some cases, you need to bring in a number of customers (meaning, your own friends and family) for loan refinancing and other financial services, and you will get a percentage of the deal. These are pontentially very dangerous since they can set up what looks to be a legitimate company, relieve everyone of their money (and retirement), and close up and disappear into the night.

While there are mostly legitimate companies out there, please be very cautious of anyone asking for investment money of your own, or of those you know.

Just please be sure to scrutinize potential employers, and if you have a gut feeling that something is not right, trust your instincts and check everything out thoroughly. In the cases that you feel there are serious abuses, please save others from getting trapped by reporting those companies to the appropriate authorities.