Category: Personal

Today’s Book: Riding the Rap

No doubt about it, Elmore Leonard is the modern master of cool heroes and squirrelly bad guys. In Riding the Rap, he gives us US Marshall Raylan Givens wondering where his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend is (and wondering just how strong that ex is, too). Using his brains, badge, a cute psychic (who’s sleeping with one or more of the baddies and wants to sleep with the marshall), one of the baddies’s girlfriends, and some of the baddies’ own stupidity, he finds the prize inside the box. Riding the rap, by the way, means paying what you owe, in jail.

Leonard, if the name somehow doesn’t come to mind, also wrote the novels on which the films Get Shorty, Mr. Majestyk (Bronson is bad!), and Jackie Brown are based. His site has good material on what appear to be all his books and films as well as an extensive biography.

Coach K: Staying Young

26 years as a head coach has produced 606 wins, nine trips to the Final Four and three national title for Mike Krzyzewski gets him inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame at age 52. Seven years ago, though, people were thinking he was at the end of the road due to back and hip problems; instead, as Gregg Doyel writes, winning keeps Coach K feeling young. He’s still having fun, still loving the life, plenty of years left in the tank and, most likely, on the top. I’m sure I’ll be rooting for the Dukies in the Big Dance for a long time.

The Top Five List has a really funny joke today

Your attention, please: Would the owner of the large jet with “Air Force One” painted on the side of it please come and claim your teenage daughter at the airport bar?

The Top Five List is one of several daily email lists published by Chris White; I’ve been reading it for at least the past 2.5 years and it’s been worth reading almost every day. Today’s list topic is Signs Satan is Your Gym Teacher. You can subscribe by sending email to Top5-subscribe@topica.com. Other lists include The Whack Report, The Daily Probe, and Gadget Geek (none of whic I’ve read). BTW, the joke above is copyright 2001 by Chris White.

Today’s Book: War Day

Remember those glorious days in 1984, when Reagan and the Evil Empire battled over M.A.D.ness? And the pain and suffering that began in late October of 1988, when the USSR unleashed a surprise nuclear attack before we could deploy our missile shield? The millions who died on that day and in the aftermath, from radiation and diseases like the Cincinnati Flu that were too strong for our undernourished bodies? Well, Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka travelled what’s left of America in 1993, gathering impressions, rumors, interviews, and official documents, making their way as best they could under then-current conditions.

That’s what this novel attempts to present. Written in 1983, when there was still a Soviet Union and the American public had a kind of background fear, as I remember it, of a nuclear exchange. The book is told in a more or less matter of fact, semi-journalistic style, a travelogue of a ravaged but recovering America (the Soviets didn’t get to drop too many warheads but did unleash an electronics-killing EMP burst). Though the authors try to engage the emotions, including a scene when a thousand orphans are hung out to dry in Georgia and another when Strieber visits his abandoned Manhattan apartment, I don’t think they quite succeeded. An interested and engaging book but one that suffers from the common problem of lack of am emotionally satisfying resolution.

Oddly, Strieber’s web site doesn’t mention this book and I can’t find a site for Kunetka.

A place to relax or get snookered

IT online news source The Register has an update today on the burgeoning Atlanta Gold Club case. Management claims its simply an upscale place to relax and enjoy strippers; the US Attorney says, no, it’s a front for mafia conmen. How does IT fit in? The defense attorneys claim a long list of famous customers, including Bill Gates plus such other outstanding Americans as Ted Turner and Michael Jordan. For those interested in cheking the scene and not living in Atlanta, the Gold Club also operates in San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, and other cities.

Off the Mark: Cartoons for laughing at

Hey! I’ve had my first email from someone who only knows of me by reading this weblog. From David Allen and the unconventional minds at Plan Nine Publishing, cartoonist Mark Parisi brings us his third collection, The off the mark Science Fiction Picture Show. Laugh at Buffy, Star Trek, Teletubbies in ‘toons heavily influenced by The Far Side style of Gary Larson. Plan 9 also carries Sluggy Freelance, Bill Dave, and Nukees. Check’em out!

Well, the bad news continues

In the mid-quarter update, Michael Lehman (Sun CFO) blamed Europe for Sales Drop, although others pointed to resales from dead and dying dot-coms for some of the drop in the sales. New expectations are for $3.8-4.0 billion in sales for the current quarter compared to the previous forecast of $4.4 billion, with earnings per share at 2-4 cents versus 6 cents. The stock was trading below $18 in the after market.

Goodbye: Wall of Sound

Sad to say, one of my favorite music sites, part of the Go.com/Disney empire, is saying Goodbye as of June 1. I need to find a new place for reviews of new music releases, suggestions anyone? And no, Rolling Stone won’t do.

The Giggle Protocol

The giggle protocol has been developed after literally man-minutes of discussion and coding. An extension of current, yet limited internet standards we felt it necessary to create a new one, for the purposes of distributed giggling. Naturally, much like the act of a giggle itself all details and code for the giggle protocol are completely opensourced, and available from this webpage, free for all to download.

So say the developers. I have no clue what this does but it just sounds funny.

Pearl Harbor Blows

Pearl Harbor takes the Titanic formula to World War II. Every critic in the country says the movie’s crap. Audiences love it to the tune of a $75 million opening weekend, big but not the biggest for the most expensive movie ever made. Can Disney do it again with “Pearl 2”? Want to read why it sucks?

Today’s Movies: Coyote Ugly, Finding Forrester

Take five gorgeous women and put them in a rowdy bar as the bartenders, with one as an innocent, aspiring songwriter and you have the basics of Coyote Ugly. Lots of dancing by the ‘Coyotes’ on top of the bar and a sweet love story for the innocent songwriter and you have the rest. A fun, if predictable, movie with a nice cameo by John Goodman as a dad.

Gus Van Sant found a very profitable, critic-friendly story to tell in Good Will Hunting and it is hard to understand why he and the studio decided to tell it again in Finding Forrester. Our protagonist (Matt Damon/Rob Brown) is buried in obscurity until found by an academic (Stellen Skarsgaard/unknown) and with the help of an outside tutor (Robin Williams/Sean Connery), finds his way to (at least the potential for) a successful life. Very Hollywood but done well both times. Matt Damon, the lead in Good Will Hunting, has a small role at the end in this one. GWH had a few more artistic touches (such as the Ben and Casey Affleck roles) and FF more closely hews to the Studio Rules.

Today’s Book: Batman – No Man’s Land

Gotham City has been hit by a major earthquake and two rounds of epidemic disease, then cut off from the rest of the U.S. by political decree proclaiming it a No Man’s Land, and the Batman is missing in action. That’s where Greg Rucka starts us in No Man’s Land. He does a good job in building the tension in the decimated city with Joker, Two Face, Black Mask, Bane, Penguin, and even Lex Luther (minus Superman). Our hero has Robin, Nightwing, Oracle, a new Batgirl, and Commissioner Jim Gordon on his side as he roams the night protecting and reclaiming the turf.

Big Bat fans will probably also want to check out DC Comic’s re-imagining of the Caped Crusader by Stan Lee

Today’s Movie: Shrek

Want laughs? See Shrek, it’s as simple as that. There are constant jokes, many out of Donkey’s (Eddie Murphy’s) mouth. Mike Myers uses just the right amount of restraint on his Scottish accent (shades of I Married An Axe Murderer) as the title character, Cameron Diaz plays the princess with good ups and downs, and John Lithgow plays to form as the bad Lord Farquaad. Through in lots of pop culture references (Disney, Matrix, the Monkees) and it’s a 90 minute ride to Storybook Funnyville.

Yesterday’s Movie: Laughter on the 23rd Floor

Neil Simon has written some incredible plays and movies over the last 50 years, including The Odd Couple and The Sunshine Boys. In this made for Showtime film, Simon looks back at the place he started, working as a staff writer on the Sid Caesar TV shows of the 1950s. The reviews were pretty good but I was disappointed; the script couldn’t decide whether to go for pathos over the booze and pills decline of the show’s star and the amazing humor in the writers’ room.

Yesterday’s Book: First Contract

A new novel by Greg Costikyan, First Contract is a very funny story of what might happen if aliens contact us and they’re hardcore business types. Beside 50% unemployment in the U.S., some of them are really hardcore–like the Grishneg, who enforce contracts with planet-killing seriousness. Definitely recommended.

Your process hath shuffled off this mortal coil

If Shakespeare wrote error messages, would they still be sweet as a rose? Noted by the author: Almost everything here is bowlderized from Hamlet, except for the obvious one from Macbeth. Quite entertaining in an uber-geeky kind of way.

Today’s Book: The Street

And I do mean today’s book: this was one thriller that kept me turning the pages all day until I finished it. Lee Gruenfeld has cynically captured the feverish quality of the recently ended Internet investment boom in a mystery novel that ratchets up the tension until an ending you won’t be expecting. Recommended

Surgery tomorrow

I’ll be going in to have my three wisdom teeth removed tomorrow morning–just like a vacation, huh?–and so this log may be quiet for a few days. Cards and letters always welcome.

Humor: Anti-MS Flying Joke

Out of the email ether, author unknown: A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft’s electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter’s position. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, and held up a handwritten sign that said ‘WHERE AM I?’ in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said ‘YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.’ The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how he had done it.

“I knew it had to be the Microsoft Building, because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer.”

Are we living in a pyrotechnic universe?

In Before the Big Bang, There Was . . . What?, Dennis Overbye of the NY Times reports on recent developments in the world of cosmology. The big question (as it has been for a long time) is where did the universe come from, or, what caused the Big Bang. Researchers are pinning their hopes on emerging theories that unify Einsteinian Relativity with Quantum Mechanics, “a unified theory of quantum gravity–two views of the world, one describing a continuous curved space-time, the other a discontinuous random one.” Currently, string theory is being pursued as the best hope for solving the convergence. Still this is an interesting article with reasonable speculations about what might have come before the Big Bang. Where did “it” all come from is something the scientists are nowhere near ready to tackle, though.