Category: Personal

Fresh off the amazing original movie version of La Femme Nikita, Luc Besson wrote and directed Leon (released in America in 1994 as The Professional), a film about a naive but effective Mafia killer and the 12 year old girl he briefly adopts. This has long been a favorite of mine, not only for the performances by Jean Reno and Natalie Portman as the title character and the child, but for the way in which Besson puts a huge amount of blood and violence on screen and makes you only pay attention to his characters.

Portman’s father is a slimy man, a minor functionary in the drug business, who runs afoul of dirty DEA Agent Gary Oldman. Michael Badalucco has tried to cut himself in on a bagful of drugs he’s holding for Oldman and when he refuses to return the missing portion, the DEA agent and his crew murder the family. Fortunately Portman’s Mathilda is out buying milk for Leon, who lives in the next apartment, when all this goes down. Reno has no desire, even seems to fear, getting involved by allowing Portman into his apartment while the cops are cleaning up their mess. But he does.

Leon is a naif, a grown man imported from Italy to do the bidding of a Don played by Danny Aiello. He can’t read and doesn’t realize that all the money he believes has been earned through his past wet work will never leave Aiello’s hands. But Mathilda awakens the human being inside a lifeless husk, teaching Leon to read while he teaches her his profession. All she wants is revenge for the murder of her sweet four year old brother. In the end, after she and Leon fight off and kill massive numbers of heavily armed lawmen, Mathilda gets her wish at a heavy price.

There are times when Besson seems to take the movie towards a paen to child love. Portman is clearly prepubescent while some of the looks Leon gives her are more than fatherly and this is echoed in the way the camera captures her as well. Yet he is too much the innocent to be guilty of more than simply forgetting his own age and just wants to protect this precious gift, someone who has offered him more affection than ever been given before.

Highly Recommended

[Interior. Late night. The only light comes from a computer monitor on a desk in the corner.]

[Sound effects] Faint helicopter blades, quickly growing louder, indicating imminent arrival. As they close in, sounds resolve into three separate choppers setting down. Followed by gravel crunching under a large number of black wingtip shoes spreading around the house.[/Sound effects]

Glass and wood explode into the house as dark suited men race in through the doors and windows. One of them slams a set of neatly stapled papers on the desk in front of a cowering man.

[Dark Suit] You thought this was acceptable? You thought we would just take your…your lies and swallow whole?

[Computer Man] I…I…I’m sorry, I didn’t realize… I just wanted to make sure my family and I got decent medical insurance

Hollywood loves to spin fantastic tales and we go to the theaters in droves to watch them. Sometimes, though, a film hits closer to the truth than anyone expected. As my father said after reviewing the information that prompted me to write this, “Sounds like Big Brother is already here.”

Just who is Big Brother and and why do I say that medical privacy doesn’t exist? Take a gander at an outfit named Medical Information Bureau, or MIB, The Insurance Buyer´s “Advocate” as they call themselves in big type at the top of their homepage. Of course, they do enclose the word advocate in quotation marks, which is probably a good thing since it is only responsible to the insurance companies that own, operate, and make use of it. And have for the 101 years since its inception.

What does MIB do? It collects data on doctor and hospital visits and prescriptions from the insurance claims made. The records are used to evaluate any application you make for life or medical insurance policies. Now that a bunch of Sun Alumni (including myself) have or are coming to the end of our COBRA coverage, we’re finding this comes into play. Allegedly the MIB report is not to be used as the sole means of evaluating applications but who knows if this is . Trying to sneak through the application’s requirement that you list your medical history in excruciating detail to qualify?

Don’t bother because they’ll find out anyway and just make you look bad. Of course, like any other human endeavor, the MIB is subject to errors. Until the government forced them, though, they wouldn’t admit this simple fact and allow plain old consumers a chance to review and correct their own dossier. Even if you could avoid this scrutiny, think about what that would say to a potential insurer (or other user of this data); consider the parallel situation of trying to get credit–a mortgage, a credit card, and auto loan–if there’s no file on you at Equifax et al. Just not gonna happen.

You think, Hey, the law protects me and my privacy! What about doctor-patient confidentiality? Movies and TV shows certainly use this plot point often enough to drive it into our collective consciousness. Guess what, you sign that right away nearly every time you sign up with a new doctor (the so-called blanket waivers) or apply for insurance. And whenever our beloved corporations deem it useful, they’ll get an exemption (from antitrust or privacy concerns) written in as a never-debated amendment during some dark of night, get the damn bill done already committee session.

And it gets worse. Even though MIB claims that only insurance companies have access to their data, increasingly insurance companies are part of a larger financial conglomerate and presumably the bank owned by the same corporation can get into the system this way. So when you apply for that 30 year mortgage the bank can factor in the risk of you not living that long. One story, possibly apocryphal, tells of a banker in Boston who called in loans on all his customers who had diagnoses of cancer. Pretty slimy, but not illegal yet, though one wonders how else, other than through the MIB (or another group just like it), the banker could know which customers have cancer.

Now the nice folks in the PR department at the Medical Information Bureau have their own spin on this and, since their professionals, the spin sounds good at least at first. The core rationale seems to be along the lines of “Why should honest people, who report all their illnesses, injuries, and prescriptions, pay more for insurance than the dishonest folks who want to sneak passed the underwriters?” Fair is fair, after all, and we all should pay–or be allowed to buy–insurance based on the truth of our medical history.

I have a feeling that most Americans (and Canadians, since MIB is at work there too) would not feel that opening their medical history kimono to all and sundry is justified on this basis. How about you? Are you comfortable knowing that for $9.00, anyone who knows a few simple facts about you can get a copy of your MIB record?

Lamont and Tonelli, the annoying new morning DJs on 107.7 The Bone, were commenting on last night’s interview of Robert Blake by Barbara Walters. The allegedly funny duo made a joke that Blake would be starring in the next round of The Bachelor, of course with large and dangerous men incarcerated with him as the potential mates. Terrific joke. Still, they did make me think and I realized that as far as I know, none of the many dating shows currently on air (Blind Date, Taildaters, whatever) has featured a same sex couple or competition. Why not have a gay version of The Bachelorette? I mean, I don’t watch any of these shows, they’re all just excruciating, but fair’s fair. Somewhere around ten percent of Americans are gay or lesbian and why shouldn’t they get a chunk of the humiliation TV is passing around to us heteros?

The skies are grey outside, I’m down in the dumps, but then something comes along to bring me up. On the last leg of the Morning Coffee Stroll, I see some odd motion off to the left. Looking over, I see a young (maybe late teens/early 20s) guy spinning a young woman around and around in the middle of the side street! He’s holding her around the waist and going around and around, they’re both smiling. Even when he stops, they are holding hands, putting arms around each other, even smiling as they notice me, 50 feet away, noticing them. I kept walking, didn’t want to intrude on their moment of happiness to ask, but I wonder what their good news was–did they just get engaged? As I moved out of sight, the last image was of them in a big passionate kiss. Brought a big ol’ smile to my face.

OMG! I don’t know which is funnier, this article or the “meal” it is about! Don’t read the article immediately before or after you plan on eating. And by immediately I mean, oh, 24 hours. And, as one of the commentators in the MetaFilter thread put it: “It’s probably even worse than pictured – most of those big hungry men put butter on their pancakes …” If there was such a thing, this product would be instantly entered into the Anti-Atkins Hall of Fame, no five year waiting period necessary.

I’ve previously mentioned William Gibson’s latest novel, Pattern Recognition, as a book I look forward to reading. Which is still an event that will occur in the future. But I do want to bring your attention to the latest Excessive Candour column by John Clute in Sci-Fi Weekly, titled The Case of the World.

Clute, an accomplished writer about science fiction, doesn’t just review the novel–he does give it high marks as a worthy read–but stakes a claim that Gibson’s novel is “SF for the new century.” Fiction acknowledging that change is so deeply embedded in our world that a writer can no longer posit a future based on an evolution from the present, as was possible until the last ten or 20 years. My take on this is that we must really be getting close to The Singularity as described by another great SF writer, Vernor Vinge, if life is becoming so unpredictable that the future is so opaque. Great essay!

Let’s see, so far we have card stock for the invitations, a wonderful friend to perform the ceremony, a promise from my family to be here, and a possible date (in June). We have a best man and a maid of honor. Looking for a beautiful place to have our small yet elegant affair is next on the to do list. How about Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, Hornblower Cruises in San Francisco (actually in San Francisco Bay) or the Hotel DeAnza in San Jose?

I will even break down and buy a brand new suit since I don’t own even one any more, though I really dislike wearing them–that’s one of the great things about working and living out in Silicon Valley. Something dark and tasteful, of course, with a nice red stripe tie. Vivian is gown shopping a week from Saturday. Flowers and a photographer, hmm. She’s in the bedroom now, talking long distance to the maid of honor about all the details.

These and more must be investigated, planned, and put in place. The Sweet One is excited and anxious but I’m confident we can do this and do it well, have an amazing special day. And then spend the rest of our lives loving each other as much–or more–than we do today. Looby, hunnay!

The results were released at midnight EST. Sadly, they don’t appear to be very good. The key fact: “The reduction of infection among the entire sample of volunteers, including all racial groups, was 3.8%.” The effect apparently was much stronger on black and Asian minorities but you have to figure that the stock will open under $8 tomorrow morning. Damn!

Update, 7:40 a.m. PST: Current indications are that the stock, currently held by NASDAQ from opening, will first trade right around $5.80-6.00.

Even the tattooed rockers applauded for Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle after the duo opened the 45th Grammy Awards with The Sounds of Silence. A compelling performance, just their still sweet vocals over Paul’s acoustic guitar. Nearly 40 years since this song came out but it will never get old. Dustin Hoffman, though, will and has.

Conversely, No Doubt are not really good at all and their popularity simply escapes me. Gwen is hot (but flat, the Sweet One said her shirt was more like a band-aid!) but that can’t explain it. So of course they won the Grammy for Best Pop Song by a Duo or Group with Vocals immediately after I wrote the last two sentences.

Norah Jones kind of grows on you. Not really my thing but at least I can understand the appeal. And her dad is Ravi Shankar (I think, though her official bio doesn’t mention the word father), so she has the genes. Is this like a trend, performing then winning the next award? Is Faith Hill nominated in the next category?

Who is Vanessa Carleton and why is she playing now? John Mayer sounds like he swallowed Dave Matthews and burped out Matthews’ yodelish vocal quality; I certainly don’t find him any more interesting than DMB. The real deal, James Taylor, is up now and a treat dueting with cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Sweet Baby James: “Deep greens and blues for the colors I choose, can’t you let me go down in my dreams? Oh rockabye Sweet Baby James.” Mayer got the Best Male Pop Vocal award over James, stupid voters.

Eminem for Best Rap Vocal makes sense, he’s one of the few rappers I can stomach. Then again I’m not the target demographic for rap (or No Doubt) anyway.

We need to go into the bedroom and watch the rest now. Explain to me why CBS is not showing this program live on the West Coast?

Dixie Chicks–ain’t it cool the way the video water turned all kinds of purple?–and of course they won the Best Country Album right after. What would Lindsay Buckingham think (WWLBT)?

Why does throwing in a little dissonence make Coldplay’s music ambitious? Avril Lavigne, meet Alanis Morrisette, note that you have one more decent selling record to go before fading into the woodwork. And that mosh pit, please, how put on was that?

In listing the awards given off-air, Bruce Springsteen won the best rock song, best male rock vocal performance, and rock album awards for The Rising and the title song. Oh yeah. The performance of the song shows just how much like an army the E Street Band is nowadays. Army, get it?

Eminem, I liked that song. Really pounding, really creative. NSync, enjoyed the tribute to the BeeGees. But Aretha, what’s up with the dress? You and Harvey Fierstein should have a conversation on choosing what to wear to an awards show! The Joe Strummer tribute was wild and raucus, like Strummer, with Springsteen Steve Van Zandt, Dave Grohl, and Elvis Costello blasting away in front of No Doubt’s bassist and drummer. Would have really liked a second song from these guys (and another from Simon & Garfunkle as well)–could have easily skipped that dude from the Academy and Mayor Bloomberg.

Last but certainly outrageous, how did Norah Jones beat out Springsteen and Eminem for Album of the Year? Pap jazz against real rock and roll, who votes on this?

I know, it’s only 12.5 hours until the big announcement on the trial results. Are they good, are they bad, are they outstanding? I don’t know. But I hate this kind of waiting. And the news media, just doing their jobs and not to be blamed, are only making things worse by running stories saying the announcement is coming tomorrow. A big strawberry on the Mercury News, though, for running a front page story yesterday that’s heavily slanted to the negative! Bill is just not a good waiter, I get the same way when almost any big news is pending, just haven’t learned to live with it.

This movie was incredible but there was something that held me up from writing it up until after seeing it a second time–you don’t really think I waited two months to see The Two Towers, did you? Of course you didn’t.

For those very foolish few who haven’t seen it, The Two Towers is the middle film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien. The fellowship of nine, formed in the first movie, has been broken and scattered and in these three hours we follow them in three groups. Frodo and Sam have crossed into the lands of Mordor, home of the dark lord Sauron, and are making their way to Mount Duim where they will attempt to destroy the One Ring and with it Sauron’s power. Sauron, in league with the corrupted wizard Saruman, is sending his legions and minions into the lands of Men and Elves not only to find the Ring and return it to him but to conquer and destroy them once and for all.

Merry and Pippin were captured by Saruman’s Uruk Hai-led band of marauders, who killed Boromir during the same confrontation. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are tracking them, hoping to free them. Gandolf is missing, presumed dead, after battling the Balrog in the mines of Moria. All three paths seem hopeless, the path for Frodo and Sam through the black lands trackless, Aragorn’s Elf love Arwen is begged by her father to forsake Middle Earth and join the Elven trek to the Undying Lands across the sea.

The acting highlights in TTT are Andy Serkis as Gollum/Smeagle, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, and Miranda Otto as Eowyn, honorable mention to Brad Dourif as Grima Wormtongue. Serkis campaigned for a Best Supporting Actor nomination but apparently the Academy wouldn’t allow it; after all, though we hear his voice we never see his face. He had to perform each of his scenes twice, once on the sets with the other actors and a second time alone in front of a blue screen in a special suit with many sensors attached to capture his motion, then the computer specialists replaced Serkis’ image with Gollum’s.

Later in the day I watched Speed on TV and the comparison of Keanu Reeves and Mortensen was very instructive. Reeves was clearly aiming for the subtle, contained energy style of action hero but only Mortensen pulled it off. Consider the scene where the latter pushes open the doors of Theoden’s hall after he is thought lost in battle against Reeves’ entrance into the underground passageway where Sandra Bullock has retrieved Dennis Hopper’s money. Also interesting is the difference in performance by Otto and Liv Tyler’s Arwen; Otto is much more believable in her range than Tyler.

The most amazing work of all, though, is by Peter Jackson who co-wrote the screenplay and directed this monumental effort. Looking at the list of movies that will be released this year, and knowing that there will be many more to come, I will say now that if he does not get the Best Director Oscar (and Return of the King Best Picture) then those awards are a farce. There have been plenty of 150 minute plus films and most of them have long dragging sections, but not here, not even if I consider both LotR films as one. The creativity he’s brought to the visualization and staging of such a complex story as well: Gollum!, Treebeard and the other Ents, the city of Edoras (capital of Rohan) perched high on the mountain, the evil of Orthanc and the pits of Isengard and Barad-dur behind the Black Gates, the Keep at Helm’s Deep and the massive army that assaults it, down to such tiny details as the bodies under water in the Dead Marshes and the blinding light accompanying Gandolf’s return.

The whole thing struck me as very Shakespearean. Epic scale, mad kings, a reluctant return to a throne, romance between feuding families, small people caught up in great events. Many people, writing when TTT was released in December, claimed the whole thing was an attempt to back America’s warmongering but that seems so ridiculous on even the slghtest of examinations for two simple points: nearly the whole cast (plus the director) has come out against war and the scripts were written in the 1998/99 timeframe and principle production took place in 1999/2000! This absurdity reflects the similar controversy that arose when the books were published in the years after World War II as many commentators framed Aragorn, Gandolf, and Frodo as the Allies and Sauron/Saruman as Germany and Japan. But Tolkien rejected that because of course he was commenting on the way modern industry was crushing the last remnants of the rural English life he held so dear. Seriously.

Only 297 days until the release of Return of the King!

Absolutely recommended!

Everyone makes fun of postmodernism. And by everybody I mean semi-educated folks like myself who don’t do it for a living. But trying to get your head around it if you haven’t studied it extensively is absolutely mindbending. If you don’t believe me, check out this really good MeFi post and discussion: Postmodern Infotainment: I Rrivolously Link – You Decide. Be sure and read the comments, including Rusty’s informed defense, and don’t miss the whack Mr. T parody link.

Three days from now, an event for which I’ve been waiting over three and a half years will finally happen: Vaxgen will announce the results of the Phase III clinical trials for the AIDSVAX vaccine Monday morning. Before the market opens, at 6:00 a.m., and you can listen in (instructions in the linked page).

I had a feeling that the announcement would be sooner rather than later (Vaxgen announced late last year that this news would be forthcoming in this quarter), and made a last minute bet that the results will be positive. Already holding 1600 shares of stock, I added 16 contracts for March $15 call options! Kind of like pressing your bet at the craps table, but if the vaccine works my payoff will be turbocharged and, if not, well I was already betting plenty and this won’t make too much of a difference to the downside.

Most important, the results should be good so that we can start taking proactive steps to fight this disease that’s killing so many people all over the world. Kudos to Drs. Donald Francis, Lance Gordon, Philip Berman, and the rest of the team for over seven years of hard work.

Is not such a bad thing when your father is James Taylor and your mother is Carly Simon. This is the good fortune of Ben Taylor, whose first album is being released on Tuesday. And Ben is not at all one of those pissy kids upset by comparison to Dad and instead is quite pleased by the suggestion. I heard his first single on the radio yesterday, a song called Let It Grow, and thought to myself, Gee that sounds a lot like James Taylor, but not quite. Then the DJ came on and named the singer and I said (to myself), Self, you are one smart dude.

True, most awards shows are simply painful to watch, and that includes the Grammies most years. Sunday night’s event holds the prospect of standing above that threshold, though. Already anticipated is the performance of Springsteen and the E St. Band, probably Waiting on a Sunny Day, and the tribute to Joe Strummer. Now, and I’m not saying this is news, only new to me, is that Simon & Garfunkle will be performing together. Only one song, probably Bridge Over Troubled Water (oh yes, please!!!), but the long-separated duo are also negotiating to reunite for a Summer tour.

Discover the beauty of snow in the Winter time

Look out the window even though the shades are drawn

100 flakes falling on the tip of your tongue

100 flakes covering your eyes from the light.

And watch a beautiful woman ride down the path

Running behind that tree where you carved a heart

Proclaiming to the world at large just how large

The love within your heart once was.

She was the perfect woman, her parents were rich

But time passes by, complain to no avail,

They turn into this and you get a couple of these

Your arms cannot grow wide enough.

No, you cannot pay enough to keep that irresistible

Urge ablaze, cry though you might and curse though you will

Her hair will gray, and your waist will sag,

Nobody can have magic to change these ways.

Fear not that your love will dim under the weight

Of all the winter flakes that fall for all the Winters

No, the screaming passion will re-emerge in time

With a glow that lasts for as many years as you.

niffleblort. snargwhompler. spittlewhiskey. bloganoia. just doing garret a favor 😉

Most of the commentary so far is filled with sturm und drang about how Google either will elevate Blogger (users) unfairly compared to other weblogging tools or else didn’t need to buy Blogger to achieve whatever unstated goals they have. Big whoop. I did point out on Anil Dash’s G+B entry comments that one possible value not many folks were seeing yet was a combination of Blogger and the Google Search Appliance as a real Intranet-focused killer app. (Thanks to my man Dan for pointing out my scoop on BlogRoots!)

But the best comment comes from Jason Kottke in You put Blogger in my Google! You put Google in my Blogger! And he made me laugh.

Who knows what the truth is, and, frankly, who cares? I sure don’t but here’s a few WAGs:

1. Both the final two women (Sarah and Zora) are lesbians and when they find out he doesn’t have the 50 large, they turn to each other for comfort and love.
2. Evan explains that, in a burst of honesty following the $50M revelation, one of his previous jobs was as male prostitute.
3. The losing female proclaims the true object of her affection is the Australian butler–he’s cute and has that accent!

Thankfully I have two TVs and will not be subjected to this mishigas!

Declan McCullagh, writing for C|Net News, has a couple of important columns recently: Ashcroft’s worrisome spy plans and Closer to a national ID plan?. The former is an overview of “a whopping 120-page proposal [from the Attorney General] that represents the boldest attack yet on our electronic privacy” while the latter alerts us to the plans of a company called EagleCheck which wants to create, in effect, a national identity system based on, and linking, existing databases.

And others are picking up on the trend as well (of course): Privacy International is holding a Stupid Security Competition. Send in your nominations.

These are bad things, people, if you want to keep any semblance of a private life. Of course, if you’re not doing anything wrong (some would argue), why worry about who knows this stuff? And if you are doing anything wrong, shame on you! Just another move by the allegedly freedom-loving people running our country these days. Who seem to be glad to give you any freedom you want as long as they can watch.