Category: Personal

Dark British humor in a 1999 BBC telefilm that Tivo Suggests was considerate enough to record for me. Martin Clunes plays Ben Black, the host of TV show called Sex ‘n’ Death, who can’t sleep. He claims the insomnia is due to the heat wave but events suggest other causes, like his deep-seated cruelty to all around him and heartache over losing his new love (the luscious, leggy, breastful Jane Peachey) and his true love (the producer of his show, quite lovely herself, Caroline Goodall, who played Anne Hathaway’s mom in The Princess Diaries).

Besides several episodes of his own series, the movie provides Clunes with a rival host, or Presenter as they say across the Pond, named Neil Biddle (Martin Jarvis) as a foil. Biddle hosts Just for Laughs, a cruel variant on Candid Camera, and the two take turns setting each other up: Black crushes Biddle’s prized Corvette, Biddle puts Peachey onto Black for a (not to be consummated) sexual reconciliation, and finally Black sets ‘sister’ prostitutes onto Biddle.

All comes to a climax as Black confronts his internal demons, challenges his viewers to grow up and get over their infantile need to see others humiliated, and threatens suicide. Faked, of course, and hopefully a boost in ratings for the repeat.

Recommended for fans of Brit humor

garret blogs about Earthships today. Not having heard the term before, I inquire of him “what the heck are earthships?” (The initial version of his post did not have the Wired link). He says they are popular in “the area west of [T]aos [New Mexico], where there’s a group of these things, looks like a giant garbage pit.”

I reply “This sounds incredibly strange, and not in a good way!”

Further, garret writes, in his idiosyncratic, capitalization-free style, “in a nutshell, up at taos they’ve build ‘recycled materials’ houses. the idea is, you cut “u” shaped areas back into an incline, or hillside. line the “u’s” with old car tires that have been sledgehammered full of dirt. in front of the “u’s” you build a sort of glass lean-to, to enclose all the “u’s”. each “u” is a room. most earthship folks go whole-hog on the environmentalist route, trying to recapture all their water (including blackwater). some have cisterns with algae and frogs and fish in them. but most i’ve been anywhere near pong (stink) like a sunuvabitch.”

He provides a link to Scott & Janis Derrick’s Earthship voyage. Quite an amazing, if ultimately pointless, voyage. Scott documents pretty much the whole building story. Takes awhile to read but getting the depth of the sheer lunacy of it all makes the time well-spent. I guess I don’t understand this thing at all. Environmentally friendly, mostly, sustainable, blah blah blah. Wood, last I heard, is a natural product. And the amount of labor that went into building this place is huge, much more than a normal house would need. They still used environmentally unfriendly products where necessary. And, given that there’s no garage, where do the residents park their cars?

I could understand building a house along Wright’s ‘harmony with locale’ ethic, modern, minimally intrusive, solar-powered (or wait a couple of years for commercial fuel cells). This ‘Earthship Biotecture‘ is just weird.

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq’s information minister, told that font of Islamic truth al-Jazeera satellite television: “The work of inspection teams in Iraq had been completed.” He claimed that U.N. weapons inspectors had completed their work in the country before they left four years ago and so there was no need for them to return. Sahaf said Baghdad could “easily” refute U.S. claims that it was developing weapons of mass destruction. [info via Reuters]

Hey, it’s good to start out a Monday morning with a hearty belly laugh.

Loved the movie, hate the website: x X x. Why do these clowns have to make things so difficult? Sure, have it look and sound cool, have plenty of extras like games and wallpaper, but how about also providing the basic information like cast and crew. Even IMDB doesn’t have a good handle on this film.

Enough of that. Vin Diesel breaks out in this film, and breaks out hard. Even reviewers who panned the movie praise the actor. My opinion is that Triple-Ex is the next big action franchise, not Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan or Daredevil (coming early next year), or the Rock as Scorpion King. Actually, I think all four of these actors will do fine and will make numerous action movies that gross lots of dollars. X-Men, if X2 does well next year, will go on for quite a few years although no one actor dominates that series. But Diesel showed more here in one outing than these others have in several opportunities.

The script is by Rich Wilkes, whose previous contributions are highlighted by Airheads and The Jerky Boys, and who apparently spent most of the last five years brainstorming on this concept. I can just imagine him watching Bond after Bond, Arnold after Bruce after Sly, night after night, and thinking what would be the next logical step. He must have kept coming back to James Bond as the perfect model for a new franchise. Who could blame him? Die Another Day is the 20th film in the series, it’s survived through five actors in the role, and countless writers and directors. Bond, though, in many ways is so last century.

So Triple-Ex updated every which way. The character could be any ethnicity except Asian, the nationality is American, but he’s still, in the end, a patriot. The music is completely in your face, except for a disappointing little symphonic theme at the end. The car is as grungy as the character, just the opposite of Bond in both ways. In quite a few ways, xXx is just like 007: the women dig him, he’s always in conflict with his boss, he has a cool R&D team to supply neat gadgets, and he waits until the timer on the bomb shows 0:02…0:01 before saving the world.

Strong supporting cast: Samuel Jackson is the total pro although the scarring seems a touch too much. Asia Argento is bootylicious as well as intelligent. Marton Csokas, the baddie, looks Eastern European but comes from New Zealand where he did numerous roles in TV shows like Xena, Hercules, and Farscape. The actor who plays this movie’s version of Q is good too, reminds me a lot of Alias’s Marshall Flinkman, but I can’t tell you who plays him because the website is so crappy.

One jarring problem, which perhaps they’ll fix for the next go round: why do Jackson and Diesel work for the NSA? Sure, it’s a real American spy shop but the NSA is completely about elint, electronic intelligence. That is, these are the guys monitoring and processing every phone call and every email. They don’t do humint, or field work by humans. Why doesn’t xXx work for the CIA? This movie didn’t begin filming until after 9/11 last year so they could have used the higher profile of the agency after that tragedy. Hmm.

Director Rob Cohen cranked it up several notches from last year’s release, The Fast and The Furious (which I saw recently but didn’t review). The pace matches the music, pounding and throbbing. He puts lots of hotties on display but no real time wasted in bed. Good foreshadowing, good use of high explosives and imaginative tech. Several notches above The Skulls, that piece of Joshua Jackson college dreck.

Cohen should have pushed harder for a producer credit–Vin Diesel got one–because that will be worth money when they replace him as director but that’s his mistake. Neil Moritz, the producer, has a nose for money, just look at his track record. And this movie had a good, but not great, $46 million opening weekend. Austin Powers in Goldmember did $25 million better two weeks ago and Signs did $14 million better last weekend. Diesel, by the way, was paid $10 million for his time and will get “double that” for the 2004 sequel according to an exec at production house Revolution Studios.

Recommended unless you’re an old fart–Diesel is worth the price of admission.

A small dinner party was held here last night to celebrate the Sweet One’s mublety-mublety birthday (a gentleman does not ask a lady’s true age, but this observer must say that she looks far younger than her age) and was quite a lot of fun. The cake was particularly good:

The main dish, cooked by yours truly, was an ambition effort into the land of Emeril Lagasse, a three part effort called Mushroom Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Light Pan Sauce and Braised Celery. Trust me, it was more difficult than it sounds, but the end result was very tasty. Probably would have been easier had I seen the show on which it was prepared but I needed a chicken and mushroom dish that could be set up before the company arrived. Vivian’s friend Aggar brought a choice Sausage and Peppers side dish, Vivian’s sister Nancy C. brought the green salad, and Nancy D. came through with a cheesy zuccini casserole.

Nancy D. also brought Guesstures and we had fun while the Ladies beat the Men badly.

Who all came, you ask? Here’s a couple of shots:

<img src="http://www.billsaysthis.com/images/odds/all1_v_bday_802.jpg" alt="One view of the guests" height="200"   

Best of all, the Sweet One had a wonderful day. Considering how great she treats me every day, it’s little enough that I can do in return.

Happy Birthday, my Sweet One

My (first) name is number 5, beating out my dad by two. Woohoo! But the old family name wanders in at 7,745. Out of 88,789.

But do you believe there is a new American, net of death and emigration, every 11 seconds?

This link is via MeFi, where someone suggested a bland name score (first name score + last name score, lowest total is blandest) so if your name is Mary or James Smith, you win.

New page added to BillSaysThis: Big 2003 Movies. A listing of release dates and one liner info as available. Big means big name, big dollar films, not necessarily what will get the best reviews or awards. My early favorites: The Return of the King, Rendezvous With Rama (Arthur Clarke’s novel finally brought to life), and Tibetan Monk in New York (Jet Li).

One can only hope that Glenn is right.

Rob: The answer is Shrek.

garret, Steven has already explained why Apple can’t move to Intel (compatible) CPUs, regardless of what David Coursey might think.

Cam, good luck with the diet.

First entry I posted to MetaFilter, FBOW. Update: Turns out that my neophyte status on MeFi made my post out of bounds, not because I am a newbie but because it should have been posted on MetaTalk and I didn’t realize that. And it is an invalid post on MetaTalk because there the topic was already being discussed.

Simson Garfinckle: Too Cheap To Meter – he’s right.. and we have a great coffee shop like Momma Gaia’s here in Mountain View, the Dana Street Roasting Company. If only the damn battery on this laptop worked I’d be chugging coffee right now.

This is a movie I like the sound of: Bruce Almighty. Jim Carrey plays an average Joe who ridicules and rages against God (probably to be played by Morgan Freeman, which is a great touch likely to give racists ulcers) and God turns around and says “Okay, see if you can do any better.” Jennifer Aniston looks to play Carrey’s significant other. Ha!

Yes, the rumors are true: The Rising will debut at Numero Uno on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart this week, selling about 526,000 copies for the best debut of Bruce’s career. This is the third Springsteen album to debut at No. 1 (“Greatest Hits” and “Live 1975-1985” also bowed in the top spot).

Tonight is the first show of the tour. As always, the opener is at Continental Arena in East Rutherford, NJ, more or less Bruce’s home venue. Only 20 days until I go to heaven (usually known as Compaq Center at San Jose) and see him myself!

Yes, this was the fourth viewing. No, we didn’t see it on the just released DVD–I’m waiting for the massive 12+ disc deluxe set sometime in 2005. Turns out the movie theater in Milpitas has a special on Tuesdays, only $1 per ticket (with a couple of exceptions). But hey, who could pass up LotR:FotR for $1, especially since it’s been six months since I last saw it? At the end was a trailer for The Two Towers, which is a different version from the one showing now before other films, does not have the Galadriel voiceover. Only four months and change until that’s out for your holiday viewing pleasure!

Possibly, TV Guide nonsense aside, the greatest TV show ever. Watching it via Tivo’s Season Pass daily now. Pre-credits opening scene on this episode: NYPD Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth) of Law and Order, another great cop show, delivers a prisoner to Det. Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) at the Baltimore train station. The prisoner, played by eccentric film director and lifelong Baltimore resident/devotee John Waters, has waived the extradition hearing and faces two charges of first degree murder. The three of them stand around for the scene and explain to each other why their city (well, it’s two on one) is better: Dorothy Parker, Edgar Alan Poe for Baltimore, Babe Ruth for NYC. All to set up the prisoner’s punchline, in response to Braugher’s comment that at least the time will be served in their jail: “I maybe guilty but I’m not stupid.”

Just amazing, literary allusions, alliteration, and a terrific punchline.

The latest blogging craze: BlogTree.com

As I’ve written previously, illegal aliens are a hot button issue for me. The San Jose Mercury News (unlinkable as always) ran an article today that use this ass kissing phrase. I wrote to the reporter who authored the article and the paper’s reader representative:

I am confused by the use of the phrase “undocumented immigrants” in today’s article “County reconsiders ID policy.” Use of this phrase smacks of political correctness rather than journalistic accuracy since the more precise term would be illegal immigrants. The article itself points out that they do have Mexican documentation and slides around the fact that the people in question are in this country illegally.

Given the recent (and justified) outrage around enforcing other laws, such as those concerning business executives and construction (environmental and “NIMBY” concerns), I have a problem understanding why this group of people should be treated differently. Further, in this time of strained government budgets, why would our governments (local, county, state, or federal) spend any money on them? The United States has legal avenues for migration and if these people choose not to follow them, I see no reason why we should extend them journalistic courtesies much less valuable benefits.

I would appreciate an explanation from the Mercury News of how these individuals are undocumented and why this phrase is used.

The article’s author had the following non-response:

Thank you for your opinion, and for reading the paper so carefully. We stand by our use of the word as appropriate.

There was no response from the Reader Representative.

Haven’t printed a recipe in awhile, so here’s a pretty basic number that goes well with a short pasta like Ziti, rice, or even just some fresh Italian bread (we had it with some Chiabatta bread from the Mountain View Farmer’s Market) and a nice salad. Forgive the somewhat pretentious dish name, it was something I just made up having never cooked this before. Nothing too fancy but fresh ingredients make a big difference in taste, serves three-four.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. Ground beef
  

• 1 lb. Tree Ear mushrooms, roughly chopped
  

• 1 medium size yellow squash, sliced thin
  

• 2 medium beefsteak or hothouse tomatoes, diced
  

• 2 shallots, diced
  

• 1 cup, fresh cilantro
  

• 5 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
  

• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
  

• 3 tsp. Hoisin sauce
  

• Olive oil
  

• salt and pepper

Preparation

• About 1-2 hours before cooking, marinate ground beef in soy sauce and 1 tsp. hoisin sauce, with a pinch of salt and a few turns of fresh ground pepper
  

• Heat olive oil in cast iron pan, then add meat, stirring and chopping to brown meat and separate into tiny bits, then drain oil
  

• Stir in shallots and garlic, then add two tablespoons of olive oil, simmer for a minute
  

• Stir in tomatoes and half the cilantro, simmer for a minute
  

• Stir in squash and 2 tsp. hoisin sauce, add a pinch of salt and a few turns of fresh ground pepper, simmer for 2-3 minutes
  

• Stir in mushrooms, simmer for 5 minutes
  

• Turn off heat and fold in remaining cilantro, then serve hot

This page, oddly uncredited to anyone, uses the recently released Amazon SOAP interface to create graphs which show how Amazon links books together. Click on the Home link at the bottom and you can enter other titles, or click on any title on this graph to get a Similarity map for that book. I would print an example chart here but they tend to be a too large and a thumbnail would be of little value. Very interesting, but beware that it could lead to hours of mindless exploration.

For every Mick Jagger or Bruce Springsteen, stars who not only survive but thrive through the decades, there are Keith Moons, Brian Joneses, and John Entwhistles who die young. There are the one hit wonders who don’t get to make a career in the public light. But perhaps the saddest are those, like Peter Green, showing brilliant talent early and losing it all because of the damage drugs have done to their minds. Green was fortunate, enough, to survive, eventually find a few supportive freiends, and make himself nearly whole again.

Green was the original guitarist in Fleetwood Mac. That’s him singing and playing guitar on the original version of Black Magic Woman and Oh Well. The group’s original name was Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, as Green was as big a name as the other two; they’d all played together in one of the most important British blues bands of the ’60s, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Indeed, Green was the replacement when Eric Clapton left that band. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 along with the other members of Fleetwood Mac and even had the chance to jam on Black Magic Woman with Carlos Santana (who was also inducted that night).

But he took too many tabs of acid and by the very early ’70s his mind had deteriorated to the point where he not only had to leave Fleetwood Mac, he had to be institutionalized. Even that time away wasn’t enough, as he spend much of the ’80s living on his own hearing voices. As you might expect he hardly touched a guitar in all this time. Finally in the ’90s he got his life and mind back when a few longterm friends and family took him in and spent the necessary time with him. By 1995 he even was able to relearn the guitar and launched a band with ex-Black Sabbath drummer Cozy Powell.

What was his life like through that time? He said: “On the medication, I was surviving like a worm… or a mouse. Even a mouse was having a better life than I was having.”

Ovation Network ran a half hour special on Green and included a few clips from early in his comeback. He looked old and a little weak but played, let’s just say, better than I ever could.

Two quite different voices:

Thomas Friedman: Bush’s Shame

Steve Denbeste: The Bush Strawman and then Steven furthers his Strawman analysis by extending it to Friedman’s essay. Maybe it’s the deep rooted liberal in me but I have difficulty with Steven’s riding an “end justifies the means” road.

As in, “You can fool…”: Bottled Water Is Still Pure, but It’s Not Simple Anymore. Please tell me that none of you reading this page are foolish enough to believe that these waters are going to improve your health in anyway, other than the general benefit of drinking water. 64 ounces a day is the recommended amount of plain old water. These bulked up waters are just expensive snake oil, don’t let yourself believe otherwise.