Category: Personal

Boy’s night out and we decided to see director James Mangold’s take on the old locked room mystery, Identity. Good choice, because Mangold really knows how to work within some pretty serious constraints (which are self-imposed, but still) and the cast is really strong. You’d think, for example, that having nearly the entire movie set during dark hours at a beaten up motel in the middle of a Nevada desert while the rain comes down in non-stop buckets would make for simple and not too interesting visuals but what Mangold and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael put up on the screen is surprising and exciting and a strong accompaniment to the other elements of the film.

I really enjoy watching John Cusack, who has the biggest role, and he shows real range in this performance, with mannerisms and speech patterns very different than the normal laidback guy he often plays. Identity isn’t the starring vehicle for him that, say, High Fidelity and Grosse Point Blank were but he owns this movie too, right up until the last few minutes. Ray Liotta gets a much better role than the dreck he usually takes, Vince Pruitt Taylor has a small but crucial part, Rebecca De Mornay and Amanda Peet not only act but add whatever sex appeal the movie has, and Bret Loehr (the only kid in the film) is quiet but provides a significant clue to sharp-eyed viewers.

Because Mangold and writer Michael Cooney have come up with a really different twist which most people won’t figure out until the plot shows it to them (I did figure it out about 20-25 minutes before that, but I’m not giving any spoilers here). A real surprise in the way that Bruce Willis’ true, er, nature, in The Sixth Sense was for most people, who then went back through the movie making little “Oh yeah” sounds as they revisited each scene.

Definitely recommended

Low carb (Atkins et al) must really be making strides in the pocketbook arena–I just saw a commercial for CarbSolutions products on television! Not to mention Russell Stover now offers a line of low carb candies. One of my friends who follows the Atkins Approach keeps wondering when mainstream food companies will get interested in this market and I think the time is getting close.

I’d never heard about Clifford’s Tower before. This was “the most horrifying event in the history of English Jewry,” a night in 1190 when the Jews of York where massacred, simply for being Jewish. Something that’s been hard down through the ages, right up to today.

[Cleaning out some accumulated mails, this seemed worth saving…]

With this stuff you can make some tasty non-grilled dishes very easily. For example, stir-fry, use fresh garlic, boneless chicken or beef (cut into small pieces), broccoli or spinach, mushrooms, salt, pepper, 5 Spice, oyster sauce, soy sauce, Rice wine vinegar and in less than 15 minutes of cooking you’re done. The only prep work is chopping and cutting the garlic, meat, green, and mushrooms–do it before you start cooking and then just throw stuff in and stir.

Big tip: when cooking something in a pan–meat, veggies, eggs–warm the pan first, then warm the oil or butter, then add your ingredients. Makes a big difference in taste. Only exception among the basics is bacon, no need to preheat for that.

These stay good forever:

• Sea salt or kosher salt (NOT Morton’s)
• Whole peppercorns (for your pepper mill)

Buy the smallest size of these you can find:

• Ground Cilantro
• Basil Leaves
• Oregano Leaves
• Arrowroot (a white powder, this is an excellent substitute for flour for you, used as a thickening agent for the sauce)
• Minced onions (handy for when you don’t have fresh yellow onions on hand)
• 5 Spice (gives an interesting Asian flavor)

A couple of liquids as well:

• Sesame oil
• Rice wine vinegar
• Oyster or plum sauce

I’m not sure how tomatoes fit in with Atkins, but I wouldn’t be too concerned with that, keep a few cans of peeled tomatoes in the cabinet, they are good for a long time and can be used almost anytime. Mushrooms and greens are best fresh. Try using shallots sometime in place of onions. Try letting the onions cook a long time, like 15 minutes, in just some olive oil, no garlic or anything else, then add in whatever else your cooking, and you will get some really sweet onions.

In an impressive cover story for The Nation, William Greider uncovers the Right’s plan for Rolling Back the 20th Century. Greider is an amazing writer–just check out some of his previous books like Secrets of the Temple and Who Will Tell The People–and he has an unusual ability to get people to really talk to him, even if on reading you’d think that such openness is against the person’s best interests.

Most of the effort being made by those who politically oppose the Bush Administration either focuses on foriegn policy issues like Iraq and globalization or on single points of contention like Patriot II or digital rights. Not to say that none of those are important but by focusing in such narrow ways the Left, which really does remain the bulk of the American polity, is missing the forest for the trees. Greider’s article shows that the leaders of the Right are not making the same mistake but instead have realized “that three steps forward, two steps back still adds up to forward progress.”

The article, especially towards the end, gives some tantalizing clues that Greider believes he understands the way to combat the “Stalinist discipline” and I’ll support your bill if you support my bill work ethic of the Right. In other words, it reads like a teaser trailer for a new book and, with a little Googling, I found he does indeed have something on topic coming in late Summer: The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy. Put this one down on my must-read list.

[via garret]

1) The NY Times gives Harlan’s new one a pretty positive review: Mayhem Dosed With Psychological Awareness.

2) There’s just something counter-intuitive about the fact that Intel feels the need to release x86 emulation software for Itanium chips.

3) j.lo’s prenup demands – the list sounds absurd to me, but then again I’m not one of the world’s most self-obsessed divas either. [via garret]

4) Rob Howard blogs a design review meeting with his ultimate boss, BillG. If someone were to ask me how a blog can interact (positively) with one’s job, this is the kind of entry to which I’d point.

One of my neighbors’ cars has a personalized license plate of webjnky. The frame for it says www. on the top and .com on the bottom. For months I’ve walked passed this VW Passat and said to myself I should go see if there really is such a site. I mean, who’s a web junky if not me? Maybe the URL has the missing ‘u’, maybe not. First I tried with the ‘u’ but that just resolved to a domain seller site–perhaps, I thought, the neighbor let his lease expire. In order to be certain, I tried www.webjnky.com and sure enough he was there, not much content excpet lots of pictures of VW Passats, but then maybe he’s obsessed. There are worse things. Mainly, I’m glad to have finally satisfied my curiousity. Without killing a cat.

Tivo Suggested that I’d enjoy these two movies and there was nothing else I could find (one can only watch the NFL draft for so long, after all) and so I pushed the button. But I just didn’t get either one, sorry. Fellini may be one of the greatest film directors ever but Satyricon is just a rambling incoherent mess of violent colors and homosexuality. I could care less about the latter but give it some context and dramatic tension, not just a poorly-lit set pretending to be ancient Rome. Mira Nair’s tale of the clash between tradition and modernity was (and this is, of course, just my opinion, no offense to film school students with no sense of humor) more successful but there are too many cultural roadblocks and places where I couldn’t understand due to the actors’ accents for me to enjoy this one either. I gave both of them about an hour and then I gave up.

Not Recommended

I am not now, I have never been nor do I ever plan to be a member of the National Rifle Association. The last, and really only, times I ever shot a gun were in 1971 and 1973 at sleepaway camp; they took us down to a rifle range and handed out .22s and I was bad enough to not earn a rank badge either summer. I am not now, I have never been nor do I ever plan to be a parent. TS1 and I have talked this over quite extensively and are in agreement on this, much to my parents’ chagrin. Nonetheless, I’m going to share with you my opinion on who should take the blame when a child walks into school with a gun (unloaded) or multiple guns (and kills the principal) or multiple guns with other weapons (Columbine).

It’s the parents’ fault! If a parent cannot know his or her child well enough to know what they might do with a gun or other deadly weapon, and the parents still bring/allow guns in the house, then those parents should be prosecuted as if they themselves had pulled the trigger. I’m sure the law as currently written wouldn’t allow such charges, though a case might be made for some form of conspiracy to comitt manslaughter if a prosecutor was creative and in front of a willing judge.

And why not? People will come to the defense of these parents and ask how could they have known? Teenagers are unknowable. Well, when I was that age, my parents generally knew about things I was up to or found out. There are two incidents in particular I can remember: one time I bought a bag of pot and another time I was stopped by the local police for driving before I had my license. I suppose I smoked my share of pot in high school but this was one of the very few times I actually brought any into the house–my dad drove me to the seller’s home and made me give it back, you can imagine the ribbing I took at school afterwards.

In the tragedy yesterday in Pennsylvania, the boy was worked up enough to talk about his plans with friends. Even if none of them was intelligent enough to mention the threats to a parent or other adult, I believe the shooter gave some signs off that his folks should have picked up. Further, even though the guns were kept in a locked safe, the boy had access to them, which means the guns weren’t secure enough.

Finally, parents are responsible for the actions of their minor children and if James Sheet’s parents aren’t prosecuted, they can’t serve as a wake up call for other families. Conservative politicians are generally the most strident supporters of protecting the ability of individuals to own guns yet they’re also the fastest to put up family values as a keystone of how life ought to be lived (paging Sen. Santorum, Bush Defends Senator Over Anti-Gay Remarks). So why don’t they make the obvious connection?

I generally like to change up when I buy a new car. Something very different than what I’ve been driving the previous few years. Have a little sports car, then switch up to an SUV. In fact, the last nine years are the first time in the 25 years I’ve owned cars where I went for the same type twice in a row (Honda Passport, now a 1998 Toyota 4Runner). I’ve had the 4Runner over five years now and though it’s still in fine shape with only 45,000 miles on it, I’m getting itchy to move on. TS1 will need her own car eventually and she loves our shiny white steed, so I’ll gladly turn it over for her use. But it’s this damn unemployment business that’s stopping me.

Ever since one of my pals got his Boxster, I’ve known my next car needs to be something fast and convertible. The Porsches are great but even if I could afford it I’m not sure I could pay what usually turns out to be well over $60k for a car. If I won the lottery or something and suddenly had tens of milions in the bank, I’d surely consider a Ferrari.

For a long time, I thought a Mercedes SLK was going to be my choice. Over $40k but not in Boxster territory. Maybe I could find a used AMG32 in good shape at a good price, right? With the MB tag, no doubt about the quality, construction or performance (though not equal to the Porsche’s, doubtful the difference would be noticable to me), and I just love the hard-top convertible. For some reason, maybe just the ability to sleep at night without worrying about some teenager with a knife and too many beers vandalizing it, soft-tops have never quite done it for me.

I think, though, that I just changed my mind. The 2004 350ZRoadster is just too droolicious and, even though I’m disappointed at the lack of a hard-top, the shape and performance per dollar are simply too much to overcome. The regular model is a tasty crumpet but how can I resist putting that top down on a sunny day? So now, dammit, someone hook me up on the jizzob so I can put down the scratch for this dream machine.

Oh yeah, the NY Times has a very flattering article today on the chief designer at Nissan and the work he’s done on the 350, Murano, and Altima.

This is not a real time report from the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference but I did drop by the happening at the Westin this afternoon for an hour. I didn’t have near the good time that Scoble did and even though I looked around I didn’t see him. The only person I met up with was the estimable Matt Haughey, creator and proprietor of MetaFilter and so much more, who actually realized who I was from my name tag; he was there manning the Creative Commons booth. I wanted to see Jason but he was somewhat invisible.

Isn’t it just wrong for a ‘Softie to want a Palm?

Today the Mercury News published a letter to the editor from Gary Katz about the upcoming US Supreme Court hearing on a lawsuit filed by Marc Kasky against Nike. The shoe company is appealing a decision by the California Supreme Court in Kasky’s favor. The suit, filed as a class action on behalf of all Californians claims that consumers were being duped by Nike’s defense of its overseas business practices and proclamations of a squeaky clean corporate image.

Katz is the president of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. His letter argues that the First Amendment precludes such restirctions on corporate speech and a SCOTUS decision that holds otherwise would have terrible consequences. I can see how the consequences would be terrible for Katz and his colleagues, but not for Americans at large or even for corporations in general.

I wrote the following letter in response:

I’m glad I’d put my coffee cup down by the time I read Gary Katz’ letter in today’s paper, but why would one expect less than such a self-serving response from someone paid to spin the truth? Free speech is an extremely important aspect of American society but for a corporation to be able to lie in official communications (and not, say, exaggerate as is done every day in advertising) is just absurd. If Nike can lie about the reality faced by the workers in its plants, why couldn’t the company also lie in SEC filings?

Katz asserts, with no supporting arguments, that compelling honesty in corporate speech would exclude businesses from public comment and debate but I do not see how this is true. All it does is require such words to be truthful, but, and this is the crux of the problem for Nike et al, the truth might cost them money.

In the wake of the disclosure of the last few years of terrible choices by American corporations, I am hard-pressed to understand how this is a bad thing. Free speech is valuable because of how it benefits society as a whole, not just how it benefits an individual, and there is no value to society in allowing corporations to lie about themselves. The US Supreme Court should uphold the state Supreme Court’s ruling.

Since the Sweet One and I are keeping things small and simple, we’re not hiring a band or DJ for the upcoming nuptials. Instead, we’re making a custom CD (please don’t report us to the bad people at the RIAA) with the following set of love ballads:

– Genesis, Follow You Follow Me

– Springsteen, All That Heaven Will Allow

– Chicago, Feeling Stronger Every Day

– Chicago, Baby What a Big Surprise

– Van Morrison, Moondance

– Van Morrison, Have I Told You Lately

– Stevie Wonder, My Cherie Amour

– Stevie Wonder, Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours

– Beatles, Something

– Bread, Everything I Own

– Barry White, Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe

– Styx, Mr. Roboto Babe

– Sinatra, I’ve got You Under My Skin

– McCartney, My Love

– Elvis Costello, Every Day I Write the Book

What, you expected headbanging deathmetal? With my Mom in the room, uh, yeah sure.

Aha!

Risk of sanity, health, doesn’t seem to matter these days. Item one is the firestorm over Senator Rick Santorum’s comments on homosexuality and especially his response to the reaction his original comments engendered. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, looking hubris in the eye and not blinking, called on Santorum to resign as chairman of the Republican Senate Caucus; Gay groups called his comments hurtful and divisive. Santorum acknowledged that the original article quoted him correctly but called the story itself “misleading.” The Associated Press then released the unedited interview.

Surprise, surprise, surprise, as my old pal Gomer used to say, the AP actually published a less damaging article from the interview than they could have and Santorum (hey, Karl, where did this guy come from?) simply made it worse. Here’s a representative quote from the unedited tapes: “I have no problem with homosexuality, I have a problem with homosexual acts.” Is this going to be Trent Lott all over again?

Item two comes out of the Land of the Lobbyists. The World Health Organization is apparently about to release a report called “Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases” and the US Sugar Association, a group of the 22 major manufacturers, is up in arms. Seriously! They even wrote a letter to WHO’s director threatening the organization if the report came out unedited: “We will exercise every avenue available to expose the dubious nature of the [report],” the letter stated. All because the draft now circulating recommends that people get no more than 10 percent of their daily calories from added sugars.

The group is now threatening to push Congress to eliminate the $400 million we contribute to WHO. Are these people greedy fucks, or just nuts? Haven’t we learned yet that sugar is just this side of cigarettes when it comes to legal products that are bad for one’s health? Because America, taking the lead in another terrible trend, isn’t besieged by obesity–oh wait, yes we are! Does this remind you of Chris Buckley’s novel Thank You for Smoking, because it does me.

But WHO is fighting back. Apparently, that 10 percent–far too much in my eyes–is not enough for Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and the rest of the USSA members. They want the report to give thumbs up to a diet in which up to 25% of the calories come from added sugars. These numnuts claim there is “a preponderance of recent scientific evidence” exonerating sugar as a cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hyperactivity and tooth decay. Oh yeah, sure, and my name is Joe McCarthy, senator from Wisconsin, and I can name 57 communists working in the State Department.

Update, 5:00: Study says fat causes 90,000 U.S. cancer deaths every year and guess where all those pounds came from!

Just for the heck of it, Evan and I are going to the Bay.NET User Group meeting tonight to hear Amanda Silver, Program Manager for Microsoft VB.NET, talk about the future of (what else?) VB.NET. Wonder if I can get a free copy from her. Or a job. That would be better, or at least more useful. Buffy‘s a repeat anyway.

1) garret: enjoying the lingering cobalt

2) Good for a laugh: Oliver Stone and George W. Bush were classmates at Yale. Bet they partied hard together. Huh?

3) More yummy corporate/government badness: Inside Cisco’s eavesdropping apparatus

Hard to believe but nobody is blogging the death Friday of database theory god Edgar Codd. You know, the guy who invented relational theory and all that jazz while he was hanging around IBM’s Santa Theresa lab (right here in San Jose) because he was sickened by the crap that passed for organized storage back in the ’70s. Hard to think of any creation in software so important since then, yet no one mentions him going. Sad.

For some reason, the reviewers came down hard on Chow Yun Fat’s new flick Bulletproof Monk but after seeing it I can’t tell you why. About the only thing that Roger Ebert, for example, seems to like is the opening fight scene, which takes place on a rickety, missing a few slabs rope and wood bridge, and the one action scene for which I didn’t care as I though the wirework was simply too obvious.

I’m more of a mind with Mick Lasalle of the SF Chronicle, who points to the little dustup between Fat and co-star Seann William Scott (yeah, Stiffler but with no mom here) when, despite Scott’s best efforts, Fat doesn’t so much as spill a drop of milk from his bowl of coco puffs as Scott tries to evict Fat from his oh-so humble abode, and gives the movie a good review.

Any movie that revolves around a scroll (or more accurately the words on the scroll) that has the power to give a person who speaks its words aloud world dominion requires viewers to suspend disbelief. Films that use martial arts to drive the onscreen violence also require this, because even Jackie Chan can’t move quite as fast nor jump quite as high as all that. So bringing in Nazis as the villains was fine with me since writers Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris set this up by starting the action in 1943. Then we get the pleasure of seeing the original Nazi bastard’s hot granddaughter (Irish lass Victoria Smurfit) fight Scott’s desired female Jaime King. Cool that even the ladies get to do some wired flips and twists.

Fat is really making strides with his English enunciation, much better at this point than, say, Chan or Jet Li, and same with his comic timing. Chan has been making comedies for years and has good timing but I still spend just a few extra beats understanding what he’s said before I can laugh and I didn’t need to do that while watching this one. thumbs up to first time director Paul Hunter.

Side note: Hard to believe it but I checked and it has been two months since I was last in a movie theater, seeing Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers for the second time. Not counting movies that only opened in the last week or so, there’s only been one in all that time I really want to spend money to see, The Quiet American, which fortunately is still playing.

Recommended for action fans