Category: Personal

Today’s movie: The Hot Rock

Based on a novel by comic caper genius Donald Westlake, 1972’s The Hot Rock was directed by Peter Yates, had a script by William Goldman and starred Robert Redford. Sadly, even with all the talent involved, the film just doesn’t measure up to the book. Mainly, I just felt that the cast and director walked through the picture and never approached the nervous energy called for, with the possible exception of George Segal.

Redford’s sister is married to Segal, who picks The Blonde One up after his latest stint in jail as we begin. Segal, clearly a criminal wannabe, has a job for them: stealing the Sahara Stone, treasured by several African nations and currently on display in Manhattan, for the UN Ambassador (Moses Gunn) of one of the interested nations. Reluctantly, Redford agrees to the job and Segal rounds out the crew with Paul Sand and Ron Leibman. The heist goes reasonably well but Sand, who has the gem, is caught by the cops. The crew spins around a batch of bad luck ever more tightly; Sand’s father (Zero Mostel) even tries to rip them off.

Not recommended

When do you know?

Ruth Wedgwood, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, presents an interesting argument in favor of the Bush administration’s detention of alleged Al Qaeda member Jose Padilla. Boils down to “By the logic of last week’s [apellate court] decision, the president could not have held the hijackers as combatants–even after they had entered the United States, even with habeas corpus review of the president’s decision, until the moment they appeared at Logan Airport with box cutters.”

Dealing

Brett Farve played tonight, starting his 205th consecutive game at QB for Green Bay, even though his father died yesterday. Unexpectedly, a massive heart attack. The few shots I saw of him (didn’t watch until well into the 3rd quarter) he was standing around on the sideline, chatting with teammates and such. Makes me think of Harry Chapin’s old song Cat’s in the Cradle and that Brett is behaving exactly as his Dad would expect.

Quake!!

Woooo! We’re having an earthquake as I type this. The desk is moving from side to side, though not strongly enough to flop anything down from shelves. No loss of power.

The Sweet One says there were some books and files falling off the shelves in her office in San Jose. No damage, no one hurt. A buddy down the block, who was relaxing on his couch, says he didn’t even feel it in the least.

Okay, over now. That was vaguely disorienting, almost enough to give me a little motion sickness. First one I felt here in Mountain View for over two years.

A Few Minutes Later: This was a 6.5, centered about 130 miles south of here not far from Hearst Castle outside of San Luis Obispo. Apparently felt well into Southern California too as comments on MetaFilter show.

Something, but not all things, wicked this way come

I suppose we should all behave properly, all the time, but being human none of us are quite so perfect. Which is one reason why the GPS-based tracking technology described in this NY Times article is giving me the creeps. I can surely understand a parent’s concern for a child in this age of violence or terror but, bringing in a commonly used phrase from journalism, this is a slippery slope we’re traveling down and slipping into the danger zone is going to be all too easy.

On the other hand, Tom Friedman is really stretching to make a point with his column. I do not in the least see the big deal in requiring foriegners to provide their fingerprints before entering America; we need to be sure the person is who he or she claims to be and if that’s unacceptable, the person really doesn’t need to come in.

Go Quakes!

FoxsportsWorld probably has their biases but props anyway to the San Jose Earthquakes for placing at 30 in the latest FSW world club rankings. Boca Juniors, based on last Sunday’s World Club Cup win over AC Milan, took the top spot ahead of all the sky-high salaried European sides.

Belated props to Frank Yallop, the coach who turned around a basement dwelling San Jose squad and led them to two MLS Cups in three years, as he was named head coach of the Canadian National Team this week. He will be missed in these parts but one can hardly quibble over the man’s desire to lead his native team and he’ll get some quality play from two of our top players, goalkeeper Pat Cannon and striker Dwayne Derosario. While I don’t see the Canadians overtaking the 11th ranked Americans, Yallop’s addition all of a sudden has his new team favored to at least capture the (new) fourth CONCACAAF slot in the 2006 World Cup.

Leading candidate, at least publicly, to take over the Earthquakes is current assistant Dominic Kinnear. Whoever is on the sideline next season has an excellent chance to defend our title since their should be far fewer games missed by starters called up to national team service. Plus one can only hope that there will be fewer injuries like the one that caused starting striker Brian Ching to miss nearly the entire season. But will it be Landon’s last year wearing the blue shirt before heading off to Europe? How many of his teammates will be making the same jump if the team does well again?

Stating the obvious

Peter Yared, a former co-worker at NetDynamics and Sun, posted a few interesting essays on corporate computing centered around web services. When I mentioned agreeing with him, since he’s laid out a fairly commonsense approach, he said “Well it all seems pretty simply and obvious to some, but you would be surprised by how the vast majority of folks in the industry violently disagree with these articles!!!” Then again, Peter, not all of us were smart enough to turn our Sun stock into a nice black Ferrari like you did.

LotR: Return of the King

Had an amazing time last night with LordB and LadyA plus TS1, featuring my brisket and LadyA’s low carb cheesecake. Then we were off to see the Wizard (Gandalf, of course) and 220 minutes of terrific film. However, I’m planning on a second viewing next week and will hold off any real write up until after that. Word of warning: Watch what you drink before and during the movie, or else. Still, run, don’t walk, to see this film!

Today’s movie: The Rules of Attraction

Bret Easton Ellis writes novels that focus on the charismatic sociopath searching for an emotional connection. His first book, Less Than Zero, was a blast when I read it, like a much more real version of the movie crap Hollywood was putting out in the mid-’80s. But his stories work much better on the page than on the screen and The Rules of Attraction is no exception.

Roger Avary (Killing Zoe) writes and directs, trying to make something artful and eclectic out of something that doesn’t really have a plot; in fact, he’s going to have an even more difficult time with Ellis’ recent novel Glamorama, which he’s making now. Avary tries to use non-traditional techniques like running film backwards to connect the three main characters to each other, as well as quite a bit of voiceover, and wrapping the film in a flashback without letting the audience know what they’ve seen is the denoument. So I watched the whole film thinking that the first few minutes were actually the story’s beginning.

James Van Der Beek plays the semi-lead character, Sean, who tells us at the beginning that he’s an emotional vampire. Shannyn Sossamon is a fellow student, Lauren, who’s caught Sean’s eye but is only interested in the missing Victor. Ian Somerhalder plays a student named Paul just coming into his own homosexuality who also wants Sean in his bed. Sean thinks Lauren has been sending him unsigned love letters–though she hasn’t, the letters come from another–and Sean somehow sees her as an innocent, uncorrupted spirit, something he’s apparently never been. The truth, as with the letters, is quite different as we see Lauren submit to drunken sex, smoke pot and go down on a TA to help her grade and snort coke with her roommate.

In fact, in place of a plot Avary mainly shows us scenes of drug and alcohol consumption, foreplay and sex (though nothing more explicit than bare breasts get onscreen) and a bit of rudeness and violence. The result is a pretty but empty mishmash.

Sadly, not recommended