Category: Personal

Last Summer we saw the Al Pacino/Robin Williams version of this movie, so it was a no-brainer to watch the subtitled Norwegian original when it came across a movie channel. I thought it would be interesting to see the difference between European and American perspectives on a twisted detective flick and I was right.

Insomnia stars Stellan Skarsgaard in the role Pacino played, as the big rep city detective flown into a small Arctic community to solve a teenage girl’s murder; none of the other actors have a name in America, though they are reasonably good nonetheless. Skarsgaard, though, has appeared in a number of US films including the recent cable miniseries Helen of Troy and the cool Frankenheimer/DeNiro hit Ronin. His detective is even more out of place than the American version: called up from Oslo, he’s only come over from the Swedish police a year before after embarrassing his chief while Pacino only had to deal with the flight to Alaska from LA. No one, of course, plays tired as well as Pacino and so I’m not surprised Skarsgaard didn’t match him on that score.

Director/writer Erik Skjoldbjerg has crafted a more complex, subtle version than Christopher Nolan could squeeze through the American studio filter. I’m not quite sure why this is so, but American films always need to have circumstances and dialog more explicit than films I see made in other parts of the world and the difference shows up in this film as not wasting 10 minutes of screen time. Characters don’t need to be so decidedly good or bad, which means our detective can collaborate with the real baddie (Williams’ character in the American version) even though the novelist meets the same end.

Recommended

Harlan Coben wrote a superbly touching tribute to his dad for Father’s Day in the New York Times. I’m sad for Harlan, that he lost his so long ago, but I’m very glad that my father is still around, still able to gift me with his understanding of the world and his generosity of spirit. I remember some of those Little League days, though Harlan was a year behind me and I never had his dad as a coach; I’m sure he remembers the one coach I do, Mr. Speigel, who was, um, very eager to win and therefore left me on the bench as much as possible.

Just want to give a big thanks to my SpoFi pals, especially Squealy, SF, Grum, Samsonov, and especially Worldcup2002 for helping me begin to grasp the real football. For example, they turned me on to some good articles on field formations. Liverpool’s season may be over, ending in serious disappointment due to their last match laydown against Chelsea that gave away the fourth English spot in the Champions League, but their are some interesting national team tournaments over the Summer: Euro2004 qualifiers (where our boy Michael lifted England to victory a few days ago), Confederation Cup (which isn’t on English language TV here for some unknown reason but I’ll try and watch in Spanish), and next month’s Gold Cup (again, US National Team looking for a trophy against tough competition), all leading up to the Women’s World Cup here in the US in late September with the American women favorites to repeat.

The San Jose Mercury News publishes a consumer help/advocacy column called Action Line. People write in with questions, there’s some investigation or a phone call made, and then it gets printed along with maybe a recall notice or two. Recently, someone wrote and asked whether Costco is within it’s legal rights to inspect outgoing carts and match the items against a person’s receipt. Costco’s standard answer is that the practice is legal because permission is granted by all members in the membership agreement form we all sign and that it’s good for the customers because the check ensures the prices and total amount charged are correct. LMAO!

The (newly promoted) writer responded by quoting Costco’s PR. Urp! Today’s column was three letters calling him on the obvious silliness of the answer, pointing out that the real reason is to try and help prevent shoplifting. Although to be honest, I’ve never seen the door check actually catch or turn back anyone. The columnist simply printed these letter with trivial responses, the most substantial of which was “Apparently not.” Is this what you expect in an actual printed newspaper for which you pay money every day? Doesn’t even come close to my expectations, so of course I had to write in.

Here’s my unhappy letter to them:

I realize this is your first week in a new job but as you wrote, hardly your first week as a Mercury News journalist, and the way you’ve responded to the question and letters about Costco’s receipt checking is not what I would call real journalism. First time out, you blindly posted the company’s blatantly false but standard response. Strike one. Then when the predictable wave of letters came in calling you on it, you printed them but accepted no responsibility. Strike two.

Where, I wonder, is the journalism subscribers like me expect in the morning paper? Simply because you write a specialized column, does that absolve you of the responsibility to ensure that you publish meaningful and accurate answers? When I saw today’s column, I thought perhaps your response would include an apology for the initial answer plus some statistics on shoplifting and how this helps Costco keep their costs (and prices) down, even if the company won’t admit it. How sad that none of that was included.

Ever since Ben and Meena came up with the Trackback feature in MovableType, I’ve been waiting impatiently for Blogger to add it. They haven’t even got it in the new Blogger. But Adam Kalsey and Kevin Aylward have brought out, on the same day no less, standalone implementations. While neither (just yet at least) has posted the code for others to use, sending the pings only requires filling out a form; I at least want to try it. Hence this entry. (True, the Trotts have posted code for a standalone TB server, not overlooked, but it requires CGI and Perl and I’m not much good with those, or at least too lazy).

Want to find blogs by location? The oldest such source I know is the Pepys Project. Interestingly visual is GeoBlog. It’s Saturday, I don’t feel very interesting today, should probably go and shower instead. Resume your own lives now.

Met the might, mighty Whump over at his place of employ today and we ate in their cafeteria. Let’s just say I’ve eaten in the cafeterias at Sun and Amazon and Apple has them both beat. Maybe somebody at MS Mountain View should invite me there so I can write a roundup review; do any of the MS blogging army work in MTNVW?

How odd is it that both of us are named Bill, live in Mountain View but did not grow up here, wear glasses, program computers in PHP using MySQL, and have personal websites featuring weblogs? Pretty creepy, I think. Still, Whump does have a job (and from what I saw a cool one which he does well) and uses Macs, even before he started working there plus he wrote his own weblog software. More creepiness: we both had salads with grilled chicken for lunch! Do you hear the moaning of ghosts by now?

Other than socializing, the main purpose of my visit was to get some up close insight into his More Like This weblog software. It’s written in PHP, uses MySQL, and the code is free for the asking, if one asks nicely. Supports Trackback, RSS, and categories (which of these three is not like the other?), all must haves. But now he’s got me thinking that I ought to do the really cool, jump in off the deep end thing and write my own system. Egads!

The other way you can tell us apart, just to show we’re not the same guy, is that Whump is thin and I am just a wannabe!

“Over 150 Sun Partners Attest They Do More with Java Technology” is the title of a press release issued today by Sun Microsystems. Attest? That’s the best word the high paid flacks at Sun can come up with? Just a quick look at a thesaurus gives better choices like assert or testify. How do they sound to you: ‘Over 150 Sun Partners Assert They Do More with Java Technology’ or ‘Over 150 Sun Partners Testify They Do More with Java Technology’. Either is much stronger.

More like, the SUV for people who really want a Minivan but can’t admit it. Threat to the manhood thing, ya know.

Since I’m all about the self-congratulations, and even though it didn’t take open heart surgery to make me do it, I want to congratulate myself on passing the two year mark of not smoking yesterday. <elvis accent>Thank you, thank you very much.</elvis accent> And props to my boys Lord B (2.25 years last week) and Grandmaster E (1.28 years) for the same stellar accomplishment.

My old high school, Livingston HS back in Jersey, made it on to this list of top schools in the entire nation at number 488 and doesn’t that impress the heck out of you? “Public schools are ranked according to a ratio called the Challenge Index” which measures the proportion of the graduating class taking an AP or IB exam. Private schools, which bias their student bodies by using scholastics as an entry criteria are not included. So 488 but then you leave out all the schools that have only good students, meaning the 488 is fairly meaningless, eh? One oddity that struck me in perusing the top of the list is how many schools from Long Island are in the top 30. So if students are encourage to take these exams, regardless of their results, the school gets a boost. [via Steven Vore, who should still be proud of his kids!]

Uggh, the postings to Craig’s List got plenty of clickthroughs to view the sale page but not even a question about the price or something close to an offer! So I sprang for $10 to buy a textad on MetaFilter, let’s see if this gets anywhere.

[Note: First in an occasional series that will run whenever I feel like it]

Things are in the crapper at the Air Force Academy after all the problems uncovered with sexual assualt and harrassment of so many female cadets. Yet Sen. Larry Craig (Republican, what else?) of Idaho thinks some eight year old promise to house four freaking cargo planes at an airbase in his state is more important than the real needs of our nation’s military today. What a jizzbot!

When you drink beer, “life is good!” And yummy stew!

Are Maxim and Stuff actually two separate magazines or just one with two names to try and double the revenue opportunities?

Fortunately, for once, we’re not referring to GWB and crew but to the glorious, though awesomely difficult to understand, science.

Interesting. The NY Post is reporting that the hostess with the mostest, Bad Martha herself, may have not only made $45,000 improper profit on the sale of Imclone stock but a much larger profit by selling off shares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) while knowing that her company’s stock would dive when news of the insider trading became public. She sold 3,000,000 at $15 per share in a deal that languished for many moons before coming to fruition just before the bad news came to light.

And who stepped up with the 45 Large to put in her tasteful pockets? None other than the investment company headed by the man who assumed the chairperson’s position at MSO when Stewart stepped down. A private transaction rather then just putting the shares into the open market. Sounds hincky to me though in truth many executives sell company stock regularly (like Bill Gates) or once in a blue moon (like Gate’s number two Steve Ballmer) to diversify their portfolio. Her troubles may be a lot bigger than first thought.

What a great film! So much fun and just beautiful animation. Finding Nemo is a terrific addition to the Pixar list, possibly the best since their first eight long years ago. Excellent casting of the voices, a range of different and interesting actors even in the supporting roles like Brad Garrett, Geoffrey Rush, and good old Bill Hunter Of course John Ratzenberger is in it, he’s Pixar’s so-called good luck charm. The software geeks over in Emeryville haven’t been sleeping at their workstations either, as Finding Nemo has even better rendering than Monsters Inc.. The story itself is funny, creative, touching, and works on levels for both children and adults; we saw a weekday evening screening with only other adults in the audience and everyone was having a blast.

Absolutely recommended

Item 1: President Bush stated flatly on Monday that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction program and rejected the idea of Washington’s credibility being at stake in the search for banned arms.

Item 2: The United States sees a high probability the clandestine al Qaeda network will try to launch a chemical, biological or nuclear attack within two years, the U.S. government said in a report made public on Monday.

My immediate reaction is that this is the beginning of some serious PR work by Karl Rove to combat the obvious negatives of what’s happening in the Middle East.

To which one fairly intelligent individual said: “Well that is… like… Ah… pinpoint accuracy. I think the next time the Feds wants me to pay my taxes I will tell them that they can expect me to file a return sometime in the next 2 years… maybe… probably… kind’a depends on a lot’ta things… I guess it would be best tho if they just continue as if I wasn’t going to pay my taxes at all, otherwise they might be caught flat footed! And one of the problems I have with filing my tax returns is that I might have made money but I’m not sure because the people who keep track of these kind’sa things for me are giving me the wrong information all the time… but I can’t tell the auditors who these people are because they have all moved into a new organization where it is forbidden, for safety’s sake, to reveal who is doing the books for who.”

If you have HBO and are willing to put up with a little blood, I highly recommend you watch The Wire. The new (second) season has just started and although having watched the first season makes the players and action a little bit easier to understand, don’t forgo this outstanding drama from one of the key writer/producers of Homicide: Life on the Streets and a little-noticed HBO miniseries called The Corner, David Simon. This week’s episode is only the second of the season and the first few minutes give the key points of last week’s premiere.

The Wire is a busy and deep show, far denser than most other series on TV and willing to spend time to build characters. Not to surprising to me since I’ve felt for awhile that Homicide was one of the best, if most neglected, shows ever made. This one is filled with a lot of the same attitudes, still set in Baltimore, using offbeat language like murder police. Not always easy to follow but worth the effort when you see the payoff in relationships that go up, down, and sideways around the power structures involved.

Most copepisodic dramatic TV series tend to follow the main plot/subplot structure, where the ‘B’ plot provides a mirror to ‘A’ and the time is split 60/40 or so, everything wrapped up in one or at most two episodes; Star Trek: The Next Generation is a prime example but NYPD Blue and even Simon’s Homicide follow the same floorplan. When a series dares to deviate, with longer arcs (Wiseguy and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the years of the Dominion War) the payoff can be terrific without dropping into soap opera territory. And that’s just what Simon is giving us here, taking a whole season to build a really serious puzzle and then tie it up in a neat package. Sopranos sort of does this, though there is a tendency to have plots that wrap in three or fewer shows; what, for example, ever happened to the Russian Christopher and Paulie lost in the terrific Pine Barrens episode?

Last year focused on a set of cops, mostly misfits and rejects, thrown together to go after some huge but out of the blue drug dealer. In the end, the cops won, sort of, but paid a real price for the victory. This season we start off by seeing that price and how they’re dealing with it–a couple, for instance, seem to be saying screw this and giving in to the system or just getting out–but the others are finding ways to jimmy the system. And Simon has created a whole new setting for good and evil and an associated group of new characters that have their own strengths, weaknesses, and relationships. Can’t wait to see them all come together as the various plot threads merge!

A show made for the intelligent viewer.