Month: September 2002

Weren’t you waiting (perhaps with bated breath) for The Doors to reunite? Well, at least the living members who aren’t sidelined by ear disease? I know I was! Screw Jim Morrison! Well, your wait is ending. Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist who wouldn’t shut up, and Robby Krieger, the quiet one with the funny hair, have decided the world has waited long enough and are now touring as The Doors and plan to record and release an album next Spring.

Since John Densmore is sidelined with the hearing disorder tinnitus, Stewart Copeland will be sitting in on drums. You remember him, from the Police, and I suppose since he hasn’t had a hit in all the years since that group broke up he needs to put a few dollars in the bank. The singer will be Ian Astbury of The Cult and, for the first time, a bassist (some unknown guy from Krieger’s band). Astley’s former group never really settled on what they were about but they seemed to move from one commercial vein to another before sputtering out.

This move is somewhat surprising. Only two months ago Densmore published a screed in The Nation decrying the increasing sale of classic rock songs for use in commercials; he didn’t just criticize the concept, he named names. If Manzarek and Krieger want to play together again, fine. Without Morrison to sing and write, just don’t call it The Doors. Admit that its all about the money because if it was just about the music, they would have chosen a different name.

Apparently, this is not such new news but have you heard about it? I hadn’t. ChartAttack.com claims in that article that The Doors were {“desperate to do a reunion tour since they saw old buddies like The Who and the dudes from Led Zeppelin raking in the cash.”

Some months ago, pseudo-President Bush nominated Priscilla Owens to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Fortunately for you, me, and the rest of America, the Senate Judiciary committee today defeated her nomination by voting along strict party lines not to send her name on to the full Senate for consideration. Ms. Owens is currently a Texas Supreme Court Justice, put there by Bush when he pretended to be governor, and a ridiculously (perhaps to the point of subconcious self-hatred) conservative person. Phew!

I made my first visit to a periodontist today for a consultation after a recent series of visits to the dentist. A new dentist, here in Mountain View, very good, with good office support staff (if you want a referral just ask), who did a serious deep cleaning and other work. She got me to floss for the first time in my life by showing me x-rays of my mouth and after six weeks I can see real improvement in most of my gum so I’m converted.

Two things made this visit no very funny. First, there was a family with the appointment ahead of mine and the father was going over and over about the treatment plan and then about the payment plan. I can understand that people want to know what’s going on in their (spouse’s) mouth and pay the least amount possible but not when you’re costing me upwards of half an hour. Second, after looking at my mouth and poking me with a sharp probe, the good doctor says I need some hard work on my lower gum. Then I can only eat soft and not too hot food for two weeks. I can put it off for a few months, to get a good start on the diet, but then it’s novocaine and the knife.

Ex-WorldCom Execs Plead Not Guilty: Former Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan and former director of general accounting Buford Yates are going to have to come up with one hell of a good story. Maybe this, given Worldcom’s location: “Ya see, judge, we was just holding on to the money for safekeeping, we didn’t want it to get lost in the Mississippi.”

the first post on today’s entry (g, we need the per item permalinks!):

grab my coffee, first email i see: “let’s talk dirty stools.” colon-cleansing via spam email. wish i could send a post back: “let’s not, and say we did.” yuck-o.

spam sucks!

Vladimir Smicer takes Riise’s midfield spot and Heskey gets El Hadhi Diouf’s striker place in the starting 11 today but Abel Xavier kept his defensive spot. This was an aggressive game right from the start and Liverpool had the edge but were unable to net the ball in the first half despite many chances (a 10-2 lead in shots). Just prior to the half, Stephen Gerrard went down hard; at first his hurt looked like a dislocated shoulder but turned out to be just a mild ankle pain and he did not leave the game.

Hamann finally got the first score of the match in the 54th minute with a nice dispossession, a few dribbles and then a left leg blast. Newcastle manager Bobby Robson took a risk and used all three substitutions in the 63rd minute; his team was surely on the short end of the referee’s whistle this day, taking many more fouls than LFC. This paid off when Michael Owen put a penalty in the right side of the net after much frustration on his part for missing so many good opportunities. Heskey also had a poor showing after missing a couple of kicks but especially two close range headers that went out of bounds instead of in the net. Diouf took Smicer’s spot but was not able to get any offense going.

Late on, Gary Speed took a nice centering feed from Bellamy and put it in for a Newcastle tally. Gerrard went off for Cheyrou at four minutes later and I expect England coach Eriksson was relieved. But Liverpool got anxious about their narrowed lead and started playing very poorly, which paid off for the visitors who got an equalizer in the 89th minute from veteran Alan Shearer.

What a huge disappointment! The Reds had a 2-0 lead as late as the 80th minute and ended with a second consecutive draw when the three points were their’s for the taking. They would have had the top spot in the league table on goal difference over Tottenham but instead remain tied with Arsenal for second. I hope Houllier takes the long break to work with his defenders, especially Xavier, on remaining aware at game’s end; perhaps we can even look for the first defensive lineup change of the season.

Four LFC players were named to the England team (of 20 players) which will face Portugal on Saturday in a friendly, a warm-up for the Euro 2004 qualifying round: Danny Murphy, Stephen Gerrard, Emile Heskey, and Michael Owen. Given Heskey’s in and out status in the first three Premiership matches, this is somewhat surprising but national team coach Sven Goran Eriksson was somewhat limited in his choice of strikers due to various injuries. I’m looking forward to today’s match against Newcastle in a couple of hours and then the rest of the Reds are off for nine days as this weekend is devoted to international play.

“That’s… a good question. They should have stopped to finish the job and get this chip.” She poked at the box. Her hand shook. “I can’t worry about that now. I need to tell you what you need to know.”

Jamie looked at her. “I’m a computer programmer, I don’t know shit about your business. How can I help?”

“Don’t worry, you only need to be involved for two hours, to get this to a contact in the South Bay. You just need to drive your car and meet someone.” He looked at her skeptically but she must have mistook his silence for agreement because she went on. “This chip is, well, it’s something special, don’t worry just what. I work for a division of the CIA and that guy on the phone was my boss back in DC. I need to get this back to him but I’m out of the game now.”

“What about the men your boss said would be here in 15 minutes? Can’t one of them do this?”

“He’s sending medical help. The people that are coming aren’t Agency, just a medical techs on contract. We don’t have anyone working in this region right now.” A car drove past and Jamie turned his head away, as if he could hide, but the car didn’t even slow down. Just another geek looking for his morning java. Just like Jamie thought he was when he left the house an hour before.

“Who would shoot a CIA agent in plain site like this Lara? Do you have any ideas?”

“Don’t be naive. There are people willing to do anything for a few dollars and plenty of people willing to pay them to do it. If I had any thoughts that I’d be shot after stopping for coffee, I’d never have stopped, much less walked out with some guy I never met before. Listen, there isn’t much time left–are you gonna help me? What should I tell my boss?”

Jamie looked at her face, at the box in her hand, at the blood still seeping from her side. He looked away, back at the coffee shop. He thought about how different this was from the clowns he worked with, had worked with for so many years, so different from punching at the keys on his computer. He looked back at her and nodded.

“Good. The meeting is at noon at Villa St. Roasting Company in Mountain View, right off Castro. The person to meet will be sitting there by himself with a Thai coffee and a Toshiba laptop, with a web browser open to the New York Times. The only thing I know about him is he isn’t white.”

I’ve really enjoyed the time off from work, especially the last 10 months with the Sweet One, but now the good times are starting to show a little to much around the midsection. So as of this morning I’m back on the Atkins Diet. This controversial though proven diet helped me lose 39 pounds a couple of years ago and I expect to do even better this time. I don’t expect to say too much about specifics here too often but I am looking forward to fitting into the shirts and pants right now sitting unwearable in my closet.

Of Karl’s hinting, that is. I will be checking out this website tomorrow: the Hero’s Journey.

Thanks buddy! But you haven’t told us how much you enjoyed the Phoenix Trap show yet! Of course, neither has Mark. Maybe the show was so good they’re both still spinning?

One could consider S1m0ne as an attempt by writer/director Andrew Niccol to comment on the over-importance of actors in movies today, the amazing advances in technology, and the gullibility of the general public (or sheep, as one of my friends calls us). Indeed, that’s just what I would consider this to be. Plus an extremely funny film and another in an long line of excellent performances by Al Pacino.

I’d also give props to Evan Rachel Wood as Pacino’s daughter and Pruitt Taylor Vince as a tabloid publisher who gets emotionally involved in the target of his story. Though not credited for her efforts in the film, model Rachel Roberts plays the title character quite well, though Niccol obviously used technology to change her appearance and voice to a certain degree. Honestly I’d say that Roberts looks better than the digitally enhanced s1m0ne.

The important thing for me, though, is that this is a really funny movie. Lots of density, as I like to call it, where every frame is used to add a laugh if it isn’t need to advance the story. For example, Pacino sets up a meeting for the co-stars of s1m0ne’s second movie, gets them all seated around a table (his office is beautifully decorated with antiques, by the way), and then tells them that the star will only speak with them by phone. He gets them started introducing themselves, runs off, and just barely gets into place when she needs to speak. Niccols also draws his characters very broadly, playing well on stereotypes and audience expectations–the studio executive, the police detective, the sleazy journalists, the unthinking adulation of audiences.

This makes for an interesting sequence of films for Niccols with which to open his career. The first movie he wrote was The Truman Show, then he wrote and directed Gattaca (recently named number two in Wired’s SF Top 20), and then this one. All three explore questions of identity in a technological world. (Note that although Gattaca was released first, it was written second due to the time needed to put the Truman Show deals in place. Niccols wanted to direct the Jim Carrey picture but couldn’t convince the studio and had to hand it to Peter Weir.)

Definitely recommended