Category: Personal

From 2001, this is a small English movie that mainly comes across as an author’s attempt to disgorge the emotional aftermath of a childhood friendship that spoiled. Me Without You was written and directed by Sandra Goldbacher (following up her Minnie Driver debut feature, The Governess), though I could be reading more into this than really ought to be. Mark it down as a character study rather than a story film.

Michelle Williams (yes, the blonde from Dawson’s Creek) does her best English accent, adds a few pounds and darkens her hair for most of the movie, playing Holly, the slightly mousy next-door neighbor and best friend to Anna Friel, taking the part of the gregarious, daring and not 100% connected to reality Marina. The only other names are Trudy Styler, Mrs. Sting, as Friel’s loopy, slutty mother and Kyle MacLachlan as a college literary theory lecturer who beds both of his students. The film is composed of sequences in five different years–1973, 1978, 1982, 1989 and 2001–showing the growth of the girls and their friendship.

Not really recommended unless you want to relive your English ’70s and ’80s upbringing as a female

Over in Oakland the players are in full revolt and one can only wonder how many grains of sand are left in Callahan’s hourglass. Turns out that when he suspended Charles Woodson before the Charger game, the other DBs nearly refused to play in protest and only calming words from Woodson stopped them. That would have been one amusing football game to watch, though, had they gone through with it.

Butch Davis, on the other hand, appears to have saved his job running the Browns for at least one more year but only by throwing three of his offensive coaches–offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, quarterbacks coach Carl Smith and running backs coach Todd McNair–into the void. Interesting that the firings focused on offense since the defense didn’t seem all that great either. To compare one macro-level measure, the Browns scored more than 20 points only three times (winning all three) but gave up more than 20 points eight times, losing all eight.

No word out of Minnesota yet regarding Mike Tice and given the second half collapse you have to expect some movement from the team. Perhaps, as in Cleveland, the head coach will stay but be forced to dismiss some top assistants. The offense wasn’t completely in synch, even with the 6-0 start, but in the end you can point the finger directly at the defense as exemplified by the two touchdowns given up to the Cardinals Sunday in the last two minutes to blow an 11 point lead that would have meant 10 wins, the NFC North and a home playoff game next weekend.

Even if you think you are. Helpful technology is becoming unavoidable and will be used in ways that won’t make you happy. Privacy, as John Robb points out is rapidly disappearing into the corporate bank account.

A busy day for the disposal gremlins as Gregg Williams and Dave McGinnis join Jauron looking in from the other side of the window. Williams, for who knows what reason, turned down a contract extension after last season and made it very easy for GM Tom Donohoe to not offer a renewal; presumably this means that the infamous Kevin Gilbride will also be emptying his office. Down where everybody sweats 24/7, the entire coaching staff is looking for a new drinking fountain as McGinnis compiled a “Look Ma, no hands!” 17-40 record in 3.5 years. Booya, indeed.

Minor update: Dave Wannstedt got a two year extension, one year longer than mentioned in the previous post.

Maybe in this season of all things Lord of the Rings, his name rhymes to closely with the Dark Lord’s. Maybe it was just that he raised expectations beyond anyone’s ability to deliver with 13 wins in 2001. Most likely the bottom line was five years, 35-46 and 22-43 without that one spectacular year, one playoff game which the Bears lost. No matter which reason you point to, Dick Jauron is gone as the head coach of the Chicago Bears.

Meanwhile, the outlook is getting worse for Bill Callahan. Bad enough to lose to the Chargers yesterday in a game where only special teams managed to score and the QBs combined for a rating of 20 but with the pre-game suspension of Charles Woodson and Charlie Garner, he seems to have completely lost the team. Reminds me vaguely of the stories about Richard Nixon drunkenly rambling through the White House in the Spring and Summer of 1974, talking more to the portraits on the walls than to his staff.

Down in Miami, though, Dave Wannstedt seems to have convinced owner Wayne Huizinga–a man who knows trash thoroughly, after all–that he deserves another year. The Mustachioed One will need to give up some of his authority to a general manager to be named later but I’ve never been a fan of giving one person both jobs anyway, plus he gets a one year extension ensuring that if the new GM wants to drop kick him after 2004, Wannstedt will get a hefty parting gift.

Atlanta is getting started with the interview process; so far Rich McKay is focusing on experienced defensive coordinators and the 49ers’ Jim Mora, who lost out to Dennis Erickson last year, is one of three names listed, along with St. Louis’s Lovie Smith and and New England’s Romeo Crennel. Focusing on defense makes sense to me since a healthy Michael Vick, the RB combination of Duckett and Dunn and a quality free agent at wide reciever (calling Terell Owens!) mean that the Falcons should be a top offense next season. Also nice to see that two of the three named candidates are men of color.

Nick Saban, everybody’s favorite college to pro jumper the last couple of off-seasons, is of course named as a candidate for the Bears’ job if the money can be worked out; I do wonder if the losing coach in the Sugar Bowl mashup will decide to make the leap. Dennis Green is generally seen as the Man Most Favored by Al Davis and may be ready for an NFL return after two years fishing, and I think the Raiders could use his style (not to mention a few quality starters under the age of 30). The other rumor I’ve heard so far is that Jim Fassel, having left the Giants with all of four wins this season, will replace McGinnis down in the desert.

Also: There is now a master page up for this season’s amusement, linked over there on the left in the site navigation bar under Articles.

For the third year I’ll try and track the coaching and general manager changes in the Land of Not For Long. Bill Cowher still has the longest active streak going but with another out of the money finish ending tonight at Baltimore I’m doubtfull he’ll be able to say that when training camp opens; earlier this year Mike Shanahan was on the hot seat but the Broncos have really picked up steam so he’ll have another year to continue developing Jake Plummer into John Elway II. The Giants already said goodbye to Jim Fassel and Atlanta booted Dan Reeves. Others questionable to return:

• Miami’s Dave Wannstedt: announcement on his future due by Tuesday but Wayne Huizinga has given him money to sign talent and four years but not so much as a conference title game appearance to show for it
• Buffalo’s Gregg Williams: teams are supposed to get better as the season goes on, not explore the deeper and deeper regions of bad
• Washington’s Steve Spurrier: Coach and the wife apparently not happy living la vida DC and are ready to say Manana
• Oakland’s Bill Callahan: first to nearly worst in one year but will he convince the Man in Black that 12 players on IR is the reason?
• Chicago’s Dick Jauron: since Ditka left, the Chicago coach is a perennial candidate on this list
• Arizona’s Dave McGinnis: a goner per ESPN but as long as Bill Bidwell controls the franchise don’t expect the Cardinals to even challenge for a playoff slot
• Cleveland’s Butch Davis: unable to develop either of two quality QBs, given plenty of draft picks, Davis could not improve on last year’s wild card game loss
• New Orlean’s Jim Hazlett: another perennial candidate because, once again, he couldn’t get over the hump and into the playoffs; he was able to hang on after last year’s disappointment but will another 8-8 record be Last Call in the French Quarter?

On the GM front, Falcons owner Arthur Blank showed good instincts by hiring second generation footballer Rich McKay as general manager earlier this month while Lions owner William Clay Ford did not by saying he hasn’t considered firing Matt Millen despite a big mouth and terrible record. Down in Tampa Bay, the decision to allow McKay to sign on in Atlanta shows that Jon Gruden appears to have convinced the Glazers that he should have near complete control of football operations.

Later: What the hell happened in Minnesota today? After starting the season with six straight wins, the Vikings finished 3-7 and missed the playoffs. By losing to Arizona, of all teams. By one point with literally no time left on the clock! How could Dante Culpepper and Randy Moss let their season slip away to arguably the worst team in the league? Mike Tice improved from last year’s 6-10 and this was only his second full season but is his job in jeopardy? The Vikings’ website lists many front office personnel but none with the general manager title; Rob Brzezinski, their Vice President of Football Administration, seems to come closest and perhaps he’ll take the fall instead. Green Bay goes to the playoffs as the NFC North champs, hosting the Seahawks next weekend.

I’m always interested in finding tools that do more, especially when they are essentially free. So after finding out that w.bloggar by Marcelo L. L. Cabral supported Blogger’s title field, I decided to give it a try. This post was made with it. I’d like to find an easier way to edit previously published posts, analagous to the bottom half of the Blogger authoring page, though.

1. When a white Toyota 4Runner appears on the road near you, get out of the way. If you’re driving a white 4Runner and you’re not Bill, get out of the way. Note that this rule will be updated when Bill gets a new vehicle.
2. When you’re in the left lane and a car comes up behind you, move over and allow this car to pass. The left lane is for passing, not regular driving and you pokes should no better. Don’t give me any grief about speed limits. And if your car has trouble with uphill climbs, don’t even think about getting in the left lane.
3. When you are coming to a stop at a traffic light and there are two lanes going straight but no right turn lane and you aren’t turning right, don’t block the right lane for those behind you who expect to make a right on red.
4. When your wipers are on, turn on your headlights. This won’t hurt your battery or visibility and will help other cars see you in the rain.
5. When parking in a marked space, get your car inside the line to either side. This does not mean that where the lot uses double lines you can be inside the outer line but not the inner line. This rule applies to your entire car, not just the front end, and also applies to you spoiled brats who think purchasing an expensive car also purchases you a second space. If you don’t understand this you should not be parking in public lots.
6. When you run into serious congestion–you know this will happen more often than anyone likes–do not constantly jump from lane to lane. The odds that you’ll get to your destination more than five seconds sooner is exceedingly small but you will make everyone else lose about five seconds be lane change.
7. You have not been appointed the Outdoor Entertainment Coordinator and so you do not have permission to turn to turn up the stereo volume so high that cars around you are jumping from your bass. I don’t care how much you love your rock and roll, rap or Celine Dion, drivers in other cars do not want to hear it.
8. Stop signs mean you actually have to stop, especially when the crossing road does not have a stop sign. A corollary to this rule is that when you’re driving on a road which is the stem side of a T-intersection, and no side of this intersection is controlled by a light or a stop or yield sign, you do not just drive through and make your turn without stopping; in general, the traffic flowing on the other road CANNOT SEE YOU!
9. When you park on a street which only has one lane in each direction, do not block that one lane. Even if you are driving for UPS, FedEx or a delivery service.
10. When operating a motor vehicle, wear your seatbelt. Besides being the law, at least in most states, the belt will give you a much better chance of walking away from an accident without injury or death. Bill does not enjoy hearing ambulance sirens blaring.

Memorize these rules, pass them to friends and family, because in 2004 you know you want my life to be much less stressful. Thanks.

The Niners have just run off for halftime and the play so far is a perfect encapsulation of their season. After a scoreless first quarter Jeff Garcia passed to Jed Weaver for a 7-0 lead on a 68 yard drive, then Jeff Ulbrich intercepted a Matt Hasselback pass which Garcia took advantage of by throwing a TD pass to Cedric Wilson. Right after that, the Niners defense got comfortable thinking that they would have an easy time taking the 14 point lead into the lockerroom. So of course the Seahawks got two fast touchdowns and the score was tied. Garcia said F this and almost got the lead back but Wilson took a bad penalty with only seconds left and we had to settle for a field goal attempt. You know what this means–Todd Peterson banged the ball of the right post for the miss.

To summarize: decent offense, especially from the QB but not much from the running game, flashes of brilliance from the defense but not able to make it stand up, and a crap kicking game including too many short kickoffs.

Later: Continuing the season theme, the 49ers did lose. The offense couldn’t quite get it together with Garcia in particular throwing several short passes and the defense wasn’t able to stuff a late field goal drive that ate up all the Niners timeouts; throw in a little blame for Erickson who blew a timeout when he challenged Koren Robinson’s beautiful touchdown reception. Like quite a few of this season’s losses, this one could have been a win with a little better effort across the board.

New owner Roman Abromovich spent well over $160 million this past summer to push Chelsea FC ahead of Manchester United and Arsenal but so far, with one match left in 2003, the Blues have simply kept the third place with which they finished last season. The Straits Times has a decent article on their near term outlook. The pressure is on manager Claudio Ranieri particularly as he’s faced rumors all year that his boss is simply waiting for England to finish their Euro 2004 effort to name Sven Goran Ericksson as the new man.

American fans think they put pressure on but to me it seems nowhere near what the top English and European soccer clubs get from theirs; Chelsea have only played 18 games so far, after all, and have many new starters and top subs who need some time to gell. Third place in the EPL, after all, means another spot in the Champions League where they won their opening round group this year and are through to the final Sixteen. This is what I call tough love.

Since the only respondent to my Mozilla Firebird Support forum suggested that the answer to this site’s display problem with Firebird might be resolved by the fix to Bug 215857, I installed the latest Firebird nightly build this morning. Sadly, as far as I can tell, there is no change. I’ve relayed this back to the forum and hopefully will get some useful information back. If any of you are reading this in Firebird, sorry for the annoyance.

Later: My post to the forum got a fast response from Chris Neale. His answer, to add a width: 98% to one of the main styles, was apparently just what was needed. The Firebird issue has been handled. Nice!

Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean you shouldn’t laugh: The Bill Hicks Bootleg Archive. Try to ignore the annoying moving menu bar if you can.

What a lazy slow day it’s been. After a tasty breakfast from Viv’s Cafe, I dropped TS1 off at the trains so she could go and be a good little consumer up at Hillsdale Shopping Center. The Morning Coffee Walk was, as usual, intellectually stimulating and not only because of the caffeine. Then things got slow. Sort of half watched the TiVoed ManUre-Everton EPL match but I knew the outcome which killed much of the interest and I spent most of the second half surfing, mainly on Ask MetaFilter. Glad to read, of course, that the Reds were able to take care of business with Bolton and get their own 3-1 victory.

Couldn’t wait any longer for lunch, around 1:00, even having had a little snack about 11 and knowing that TS1 was only minutes away from home. So I gave into my hunger and scarfed some of the delicious leftover ribs that Viv’s Cafe served lst night… yummy. For that snack I had an EAS AdvantEdge Carb Control low carb drink which was part of a low carb basket Xmas gift from one of TS1’s co-workers. Not bad tasting compared to the Atkins version, especially compared to the version one mixes up from the powder.

The next couple of hours are mostly a blur as a post-lunch coma kicked in and out as I was watching the Motor City Bowl. Finally emerged from it around 3:30 and spent the last 75 minutes finishing off Semper Mars, the first book in The Heritage Trilogy, by Ian Douglas (although not, apparently, this Ian Douglas because this book’s author is using a nom de plume and is really called William Keith). I epxect to finish the other two before adding a writeup here.

Got some spam from one John Stoner this morning but he wasn’t offering what I was expecting.

For those of you who’ve been following my job saga, I have something to tell. While it isn’t the great news of a new full-time position, it is a nice short-term gig building a website for a new company (which for reasons other than my own will go unnamed at this time) that will bring in some cash over the next month. I’ve learned a good deal over the past three years since taking up PHP, CSS and the rest of the TLAs and will be designing a content system that is the next generation of my past work.

Call it Codename: Blitzen since I’ve started building it on Xmas Day. I doubt the code or design will be of interest to anyone else though I’m writing with as much abstraction as possible. Still, there are certain layout choices I can’t seem to abstract away without getting into a templating system and I am not interested in that. Should be interesting. I’m working for intelligent (and generous) people who’ve no web skills and who therefore won’t be micromanaging me. W00t!

I did get some other nice holiday presents–thanks Vivian, Mom and Dad, Evan, LordB and LadyA, Pam, Dewi and Andrew, and Nancy and Jim–but no need to make the rest of you jealous(!). One present I didn’t get was to see Something’s Gotta Give because when we got into the tiny auditorium the only two seats together were in the front row, less than five feet from the screen and we didn’t feel like breaking our necks looking up for two hours. Oh well, another time.

I am such a curmudgeon! Even today means little to me except that we get craptastic repeats and moreless on TV plus all the stores are closed; if I was working I’d be happy to have the days off and of course I don’t begrudge others that pleasantry or their chance to worship the invisible man in the sky. Still, I was completely peeved to learn that the National Park Service is caving to the Religious WackosRight by allowing the display of three bronze plaques bearing biblical verses at the Grand Canyon.

So I sent the following letter to Gale Norton (Secretary of the Department of the Interior), Deputy Director Donald Murphy (through his mouthpiece David Barna) and Joe Alston (Superintendent of the Grand Canyon National Park) to express my thoughts:

I am writing to express my personal disgust at recent actions taken by your organization to approve the display of religious symbols and Bible verses, as well as zllow the sale of creationist books giving a non-evolutionary explanation for the Grand Canyon and other natural wonders within national parks.

I would like an explanation of how this does not violate the First Amendment in a huge way. And if the ACLU had not already done so, I would have been on the phone with them tomorrow to volunteer as lead plaintiff in such a legal action.

From 2001, Y tu mama tambien is a critically acclaimed movie made in Mexico by Alfonso Cuaron (who is directing the next Harry Potter film) about two teenage boys and a slightly older woman who learn about life, love and themselves in the course of a trip to an isolated beach. Very tittilating movie mining wellworn territory.

Frankly I don’t understand why this film was so well received (such as an Oscar nomination for Best Writing that Cuaron shared with his brother) but perhaps it was the pseudo-innocent sexuality swirled with mixed-high left wing politics. The film opens with one of the boys and his girlfriend, naked and tossing together in bed, followed by the other boy sneaking in some last-minute sex with his own chickie before the two girls fly off for a Summer holiday in Italy. And the Cuaron brothers throw in more physicality about any chance they get. Meanwhile, there is talk of political corruption, protests and economic disparity combined with classism around every bend.

Not recommended

The Times continues to print reader letters regarding gay marriage. Most of the letters are as you’d expect, from one side or the other. Donald Leventhal of Chesterland, Ohio states, however, that while the legal benefits of marriage are a reasonable desire (I guess he would agree with granting them), the idea of artifical insemination of a lesbian couple should be outlawed because “How can children who will never meet or even see a picture of their biological father have anything but a great sense of loss and a huge gap in their lives?”

What a doofus. Using his logic, all adoptions and artificial inseminations where the sperm donor is not the man who raises the child should be outlawed as well. The newspaper probably prints such letters to show the range of opinions on a very controversial topic but I wish they’d use a higher standard for selection. Compare it to a letter responding to a recent OpArt piece on Iraq. Donald Leventhal, you are a doofus and you can quote me on that.

Christmas cheer. Or not! As TS1 said: Poopie customers!

Reminding everyone watching of 1999, Research in Motion gave shareholders a major Xmas present today by sending the share price up over 50% with a “dazzling” earnings outlook. Cool for them! Could somebody mention this to Scott McNealy for me? Thanks.