Category: Personal

Techies can have a sense of humor too!

And I’m not just talking about SevTrek. Bill Nottingham of Red Hat posted a message that denies the existence of a new beta:

“It has come to our attention that rumors are floating regarding the appearance of a Red Hat Linux beta release, named ROSWELL. We would like to reassure you that there is nothing of the sort.”

He then goes on to list the major features, place to file bug reports, and place to get the docs, as well as a list of mirror locations to download the 2.5 gigabytes of software. He ends with

“However, there is no evidence to suggest the actual presence of a ROSWELL beta release. Those who claim otherwise would best not flaunt their naivete by telling anyone that they saw anything other than Rawhide.”

I love a good laugh.

Monday’s movie: The Wedding Planner

Saw this flick on DVD at a friend’s while in Vegas. Cute, Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Lopez meet coincidentally and fall in love. But–oh no–they are supposed to marry others and Lopez is actually planning McConaughey’s extremely upscale affair. Predicatable but fun. Definitely a chick flick.

Please explain the appeal

Remixes are popular, Mariah Carey is popular and so we have her new Loverboy video, which features a remix of the song. I guess I’m just getting old, but the remixed version was just unlistenable like something from Wu Tang Clan. We all know why I think the latter is unlistenable but in general Carey has a pleasant voice and decent songs. This remix, though, reverbs multiple overdubs of her voice against an amped up bass line and not much else, playing the song’s chorus over and over again. Okay, I’m old and out of it, that’s all. At least she’s showing off her nice, if surgically enhanced, breasts.

Completely irrelevant but Mariah’s in the hospital after a nervous breakdown.

Yesterday’s book: The Avatar, Book I

I’ve just started Book II so I’ll defer a real review until that writeup. I will point out that this pair is the relaunch of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, continuing the story after the end of the TV series. The Dominion War is over, Odo has returned to the Great Link, Benjamin Sisko has gone to live with the Prophets, O’Brien has returned to Earth, and Coronel Kira is in charge of the station with Nog as her engineering chief and Ro Laren as head of security. With staff limited by the Federation’s need to rebuild and repair so many planets and facilities after the war, life isn’t easy but the only problem is time. Until three Jem’Hadar ships push through the Wormhole, destroy a Starfleet cruiser assigned to protect DS9, and nearly destoy the station itself. Until a religious leader shows up with a frightening accurate ancient book of potentially heretical prophecies, the next of which concern Jake Sisko and his unborn sibling, and is promptly murdered.

PsiPhi has a bunch of info on the DS9 Relaunch including character, schedules, and excerpts.

Tonight’s movie: Croupier

The Brits know how to make movies about crime and addiction. Not surprising that I liked Croupier, as its directed by Mike Hodges, who also did the original Get Carter (although Hodges did hit a rut in the ’80s). This one was on Starz! so catch it if you can.

This film is a tense little thriller about a would-be writer who can’t break into the paying ranks. Having been raised by a gambler/con man father he knows all about casinos and takes a job in one in London. The gorgeous Alex Kingston (ER’s Dr. Elizabeth Corday) plays into his life, although he’s living with the quite attractive Gina McKee, which gives us the requisite criminal element, although the film is as much about addiction. Many, many gamblers (such as Mr Tchai, a wealthy Chinese man who plays thousands of punds night after night) but also Clive Owen’s Jack Manfred as the title character, who drinks to hallucination and smokes constantly as he finally writes a bestseller based on his life at the casino.

Rock Reviews: Over the Top

For all I know, Ann Powers is correct down to the last punctuation mark in her New York Times article Keeping the July Fourth Spirit Rolling, a review of a recent Bon Jovi concert at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. I’ve never been to a Bon Jovi concert, although I think I’ve seen one or two of his concerts broadcast on TV, and I haven’t been to a concert a Giants Stadium since Bruce Springsteen’s 1987 Tunnel of Love Tour. Still, let’s post a few quotes and consider them:

“This was music from a town called Hope, or New Hope at least, which is almost in New Jersey, given Bon Jovi’s allegiance to the heartland within dreaming distance of the Empire State Building, a model of which formed the centerpiece of its stage set.”

Here we have a reference to Bill Clinton, who hails from Hope, Arkansas, and used a similar reference in his first presidential campaign. New Hope is in Pennsylvania, although just across the river from the Jersey border. Dreaming distance? Oh, what a romantic turn of phrase, as if native New Jerseyans (such as your weblogger himself) can only lust after this golden city but never find it for themselves.

“Romantic pain was lightened by a frolicsome beat and amusing lyrics, as in the raucous “Bad Medicine,” and life crises were clad in Western garb and made epic, as in the soaring “Blaze of Glory” and the solemnly grand “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

Romantic pain, frolicsome beat, amusing lyrics, life crises clad in Western garb and made epic… Oh my god, can I just throw up on your copy of the newspaper? Is Jon Bon Jovi the distant love child of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Louis L’Amour?

“Bed of Roses” shared a soaring climax with “Blaze of Glory,” while the recent hit, “It’s My Life,” was not only a lyrical sequel to 1986’s “Livin’ on a Prayer,” but also echoed the earlier song in its verse-chorus structure.”

By shared a soaring climax and lyrical sequel, is the author implying the Jon is fresh out of ideas? And what’s with “echoed the earlier song in its verse-chorus structure?” Essentially every rock song written since before the blues and country morphed into Elvis, Buddy, and Bill Haley has used the verse-chorus structure. Some of the more imaginative musicians even throw in a bridge.

One has to wonder if <a href="http://search.nytimes.com/plweb-cgi/fastweb?view=site&TemplateName=hitlist_MPoff.tmpl&dbname=unify&sorting=BYFIELD:-skey_pdate&numresults=10&operator=AND&simplesearch.x=10&simplesearch.y=10&query1=thedbs%3Dpast30days%26section%3DALL%26fields%3DALL%26thequery%3Dann%2520ADJ%2520powers&query2=sorting%3DBYFIELD:-skey_pdate&starthit=0&query8=from%20the%20past%2030%20days&query7=ann%20powers&query=(ann%20ADJ%20powers)%20AND%20(20010703Ms. Powers, as the Times’ own formal style would refer to her, has tongue firmly planted in cheek for this little doozy.

Everything goes better with Water

I’ve eaten at a few Olive Garden restaurants and been generally satisfied, although the service can leave you a little nonplussed. But, like all businesses, the managers there attempt to maximize revenues and profits. When people order soft drinks instead of tap water, the tab is higher, so the good folks at Coca Cola stepped in to help Olive Garden sell more soda. They came up with a plan called H2NO and an incentive contest called “Just Say No to H2O.” I suppose the simple fact that water is healthier for us to drink doesn’t really matter to them.

Lance Armstrong for President

What? Winning the Tour De France three times in a row in dominating fashion–the third and fourth fastest times in the 88 year history of the race the past two years–isn’t enough qualification? George W. drank his way through his 20s and 30s and look at him go now. The NY Times says Armstrong Joins the Gods of Cycling. God, president, it’s all good.

Yesterday’s book: A Painted House

Imagine a novel by John Grisham. It’s set somewhere in the South (with a capital S), has a young (possibly 30-ish) struggling lawyer as our hero, and eventually Our Hero beats the bad/corupt/murderous lawyers or judges. Every single one of them, 11in all, have been bestsellers. And with nothing left to prove but that he has real talent and not just commercial skills, Grisham reared back, typed hard, and pulled this sweet, sensitive story out of his back pocket. Or maybe the pocket of his Cardinals jacket–baseball references are certainly valid with this semi-autobiographical book. While I liked this book, others disagree, silly them.

Best film of a Grisham novel is still the first one, The Firm with Tom Cruise. If you’re a really big fan of this author, check out the John Grisham Room on the campus of Mississippi State University, which contains papers and materials donated by the Mississippi State University alumnus.

Big shout out to the infamous Choadmaster for loaning me the book.

Hey the pandering worked!

Well, the Talking Moose came through– he even titled the page “Begging for Links.” Things like this make life fun. This is something I think the Moose knows. This is what I originally said to him.

Today’s movie: America’s Sweethearts

Basically, I will see any movie with John Cusack in it and almost any movie with Julia Roberts. Billy Crystal, who wrote and produced this film, if he’s being funny. So it was only a matter of time (six days actually) until I saw America’s Sweethearts, a sweet, funny movie. Christopher Walken makes a short but potent appearance at the end as the director of the movie-within-a-movie that is the point of America’s Sweethearts and he turns everything upside down.

This film had a bigger opening weekend (that is, had a higher take at the box office) than any of Cusack’s previous films, even Con Air but this is probably due more to Robert’s pull. It is apparently the second biggest opening for her.

Proposal to rebirth American news

Poll after poll for the last 20 years has shown that Americans are losing faith in the mainstream news media. Robert Parry, editor of the Consortium News, has proposed a Superstation Democracy to win back the public trust by putting aside “today’s sneering punditry and vacuous journalism” and celebrating “what’s great about America: the democratic ideals, the environment, its diverse people, its rich history, its grassroots culture.” Consortium News, to be sure, is a proponent of the modern Left, an analysis made clear by simple examination of the current table of contents. Which doesn’t mean Parry is wrong either.

Suicidal poet haiku

A study led by James Pennebaker and reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine claims that analysis of the poetry of writers who committed suicide gives clues about their eventual fate. Were their poems like this haiku?

When his necked snapped

Falling down from a great height

He sighed with relief

Is that too obvious? Well, that fanciful UK paper The Register weighs in on the research.

Bill is not above pandering

There is a cool new blog running around out there called Talking Moose for the past few weeks and is gathering reams of attention. While the blog is self-attributed to “the WatchMoose of the Internet, living in a mud bog in Wyoming”, the real author prefers to remain anonymous and this is only adding to the mystique. Since TM appears willing to link to anyone who links to him, I sent the following email yesterday in a blatant attempt to get some TM coolness for BillSaysThis:

From: “Bill Lazar”

To:

Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 10:27 PM

Subject: linking

> Mr. Cool Moose,

>

> Dave has never linked to my blog:

> http://www.billsaysthis.com/blog/blogger.phtml

>

> Do you think it’s because I user Blogger? LOL

>

> Keep up the cool stuff and I’ll keep reading.

>

> Bill

Notice I was not quite so blatant as to ask for a link directly. It didn’t work, or at least not yet as I haven’t been mentioned. Boo hoo.

Publishing Science Fiction

I’ve been reading Analog more or less continuously since the late ’60s and for most of that time Stan Schmidt has been the editor. Science Fiction Weekly, my favorite online SF magazine, has new author Michael Burstein interview Schmidt in the current issue and he has a few interesting things to say about the state of print SF magazine publishing.

This is what high speed web access is for

We are talking about a very high cool quotient here: xdude’s The Dough and BMW’s 5 Major Shorts. If you have DSL or a cable modem, check these out. And on BMWFilms, download the custom viewer.

And while this isn’t strictly a bandwidth hogger, check out The Road to Springfield, a fan site using voting to determine the best supporting character and to be eligible, the character must have appeared in at least two episodes.

New new thing turns into new youth thing

Michael Lewis, who wrote the really cool Liars Poker about the trip money masters of the mid-80s and about Netscape/Healtheon/myCFO meister Jim Clark in The New New Thing, spent the last year meeting teens using the Internet in ways those of us over 35 just wouldn’t imagine for his latest book, The Future Just Happened, and he talks about it to The Independent. Most of us know of Shawn Fanning, who gave us Napster, but how about 15 year olds lawyer Marcus Arnold or stock manipulator Jonathon Lebed?

Who knew? My username means something interesting

blazar is my username on many systems (the standard first initial plus last name) but other than a misspelling, I never gave it much thought. I never thought to ask What is a blazar? Turns out that a blazar is an astronomical object, a newly uncovered class of active galaxy. Oooh, a whole kind of galaxy named after me!

I found this info after checking out a new clustering engine named Vivisimo, which does not search/crawl the web itself but organizes the outputs of other search engines. The marketing dweebs at Vivismo use the term clustering engine instead of metasearch engine because its core technology is the automatic organization of documents into meaningful groups. The company is a spinout from the Computer Science labs of Carnegie Mellon University, where I spent my somewhat happy freshman year of college.

Yesterday’s book: Exodus

Just like I can’t explain my fervor for American athletes in international competition, the same goes for being pro-Israel. Sure, I’m Jewish, but that doesn’t mean I should always love books like Exodus by Leon Uris. This novelization of the founding of the State of Israel is touching in parts and stilted in others but certainly filled with historical info. Worth reading and now I need to see the film version with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint as the star-crossed lovers.