Category: Personal

From last Friday, photographic evidence: Geek Dinner, or Int’l Bill Conspiracy. Thanks Bill, Cynthia, Andrew (Bill), Vivian and I had a wonderful night out.

If I publish a new post, the edits to existing posts are pushed out as well. Annoying but less painful, assuming deletes work properly.

Later: Blogger Support seems to think there is no problem, let’s have a test.

Let’s just say that yesterday’s issue is still an issue. I’d reported it to Google Support and got a fairly useless response–the problem ticket generator form allows you to select whether the problem applies to one blog or none in particular and since this problem happens to me across blogs I selected the latter and the email I got simply asked which blog had the problem. And I sent my reply at lunch time but of course didn’t hear back before quiting time. Now that’s well-trained support, right?

I am getting an odd error trying to republish an edited post:

550 www/2004/08/isnt-he-bit-like-you-and-me.phtml: No such file or directory on file:www/2004/08/isnt-he-bit-like-you-and-me.phtml

I might understand this problem if I had the per post pages enabled, but I don’t. This happens on any post I try to edit and republish. If you don’t see this entry then it means the problem applies to new posts as well.

Update: If you can read this then the problem is corrected. I suppose.

Update, next night: Can you read this?

There is a good philosophical connection between French author urges slacking and What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It? Because right now many of us, at least in the so-called First World, are stuck in ennui-inspiring go nowhere jobs with little hope for ending the ennui. [via hal]

Intransa Inc., an Internet protocol-based storage area network systems company where I just finished up a product management contract, has raised a $25 million Series D round to take the company to profitability next year. The company was beginning to ramp up, with very strong distribution deals in the US, Europe and Asia when I left and hopefully this money will see them through to the Promised Land.

Also of interest, Dr. Avi Katz, Intransa’s CEO, will be the speaker this Thursday night for the JHTC.

/. points out a great PopSci article, Is Science Fiction About to Go Blind?, which focuses on the concept of the Singularity and how SF writers are dealing with it, particularly Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross. For someone like me, who prides himself on keeping up with what’s what in science fiction, this is an eye opener.

Also to Orion’s Arm, an amazing shared, openly created future universe with stories, cosmography, online gaming and more.

And speaking of gaming, how about Agyris?

Sunday morning laughter: Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness collects just what the name says

Pam invited us to go see this film and, since we wanted to see it anyway, said sure. Always good to spend time with the lady with the funny hat even if she wouldn’t wear it to the movie house, plus we had some pretty tasty BBQ after.

Collateral comes from director Michael Mann (Miami Vice, Heat, Ali) and scripwriter Stuart Beattie (first big American credit) that rides a fairly standard Hollywood formula but turns many of these aspects against itself to succeed:

• Hit man hires a cabbie to drive him around one night while he takes out the witnesses planning to testify against a drug lord
• Weak hero (Jamie Fox) starts out scared of his own shadow but overcomes it through events and provocation, but mostly because of true–not needed by the script–goodness in his heart
• Tom Cruise cast against type as the bad guy, with gray hair and a scraggly beard, which only matters because Cruise has such a positive, pretty boy reputation and he confounds expectations in ways that less strongly-typed actors couldn’t
• A slick, stylish production, visually, sonically, even in the editing that will be no surprise to Mann fans

Pam said this was the best movie she’s seen this year and I’ll agree with her that this is excellent but I’d rank it second to, but not far behind, Bourne Supremacy.

definitely recommended

Playing the opening match of the English season, Liverpool travelled down to London to face Hotspur with new headman Rafa Benitez, a completely new starting strike force and without Michael Owen. On the latter move, captain Steven Gerrard spoke for the whole team in saying “Shock, really. Obviously, we came back after pre-season (training) and Michael was here, so we thought he was going to be playing for us this season. But Real Madrid have come calling and everyone knows how difficult it is to turn them down.”

The Reds opened well, dominating the first half and leading on Djibril Cisse’s lovely little redirect of Carragher’s push. Spurs seemed a little unsettled by comparison, even after 13 warmup matches, and had nothing in the offensive third; ‘Pool had six of the first seven shots on goal and we were a bit robbed of what should have been a PK once, if not twice. Whatever new manager Jacques Santini said in the locker room must have been heard by his players as they came back to the pitch much better organized and determined to go forward together.

Lots of back and forth for more than 15 minutes and then Benitez pulled a little shocker of his own, making a tactical substitution of Florent Sinama-Pongolle (as a midfielder) for Cisse in direct opposition to expectations that he would be a more adventurous manager than Gerard Houllier. Here we go, playing to not lose instead of playing to win.

And sure enough not 10 minutes later the home side made us pay with a brilliant little twist away by Jermain Defoe that squeezed in between Riise and Dudek and into the back of the netting from short distance. Benitez said he was satisfied with a result on the road and that he took out both starting strikers because they’d run out of energy, but that doesn’t explain why he stopped the aggressive tactics that went so well early; there’s no question that FSP and Stephen Warnock (Baros’ replacement) could have both played up top rather than the 4-5-1 form.

The starting XI was a bit surprising as well:

• Dudek in goal over Kirkland even though the latter is finally reported healthy
• Carragher in central defense partnered with Mr. Rock Sammi Hyypia, Josemi and Riise to either side
• Finnan giving width on the right side of midfield, his first appearance out of the back line since coming to LFC, a surprise since in preseason it was Riise in this spot and Finnan as fullback

Didier Hamman played most of the game as our defensive midfielder, until being replaced by Igor Biscan in the last minutes, was a non-entity most of his time and I wonder if we will see more changes in midfield for next Saturday’s home match against Manchester City. Depends on whether we do sign Xabi Alonso, if Nunez (the throw-in from Real Madrid on the Owen deal) can prove his fitness in time, or perhaps even Biscan will move Hamman aside.

For sure another draw will not be acceptable.

Elmore Leonard is possibly the top mystery writer in the US today (Riding the Rap, Get Shorty, Glitz) and his recent novel Mr. Paradise is a great example of why. Leonard usually sets his stories in Florida or LA but this one goes back to his native Detroit and while you might think a guy his age would be way out of touch with current culture but he does his homework. Really well, as best I can tell.

Basic plot: Mr. Paradise is an older, retired criminal defense lawyer who enjoys his golden years by having his hooker girlfriend come over to do some live cheerleading while he watches videos of University of Michigan football victories. He has two former clients taking care of his other needs and each of the three has been given a promise of reward after the lawyer expires. But one of the men finds the situation’s changed and he is no longer content to wait for nature to get the job done.

But criminals usually make mistakes, at least in novels like this one, and so DPD Homicide veteran Frank Delsea has no real problem figuring this one out. He gets a really hot chick out of the investigation too. The bad guys pretty much all go down, they have to.

The beauty, though, is the way Leonard has with English; plot and characters are secondary even if he does a fine job with them. He just writes books that you don’t want to put down until they’re done and then you want to go back to the library and get another.

recommended

New Jersey is known for twisted politics but today’s news really makes me go Holy Moly! Really sad that McGreavey is going down for being stupid but (mostly) Republicans will push it against the gay community.

This is why God created blogging.

The Giants suck. No doubt I hate baseball but tonight is even worse because the Giants game has gone into extra innings and pre-empting/delaying the (already tape-delayed) Earthquakes-Fire broadcast. Both sides may currently be in last place in thier respective divisions but are still strong squads that match up well against each other and I was really looking forward to watching. Making it worse, FSN hasn’t even bothered to have the announcers say anything or to run a crawl on the bottom of the screen telling us whether they’ll join in progress.

As I wrote the last sentence, the Pirates hit a home run to win the game. 7:24. How long will it be before the soccer is onscreen? Oh sure, let’s show some commercials (five) first, then back to the idiotsannouncers.

Looks like the entire match will be broadcast, at least, given that their opening with a normal pre-game run up.

Later: We lost 2-1 when we should have won 3-1 or better. Landon hit the crossbar, Mullan hit the left post, the ref gave us one PK but completely missed a second (not to mention giving out cards like they were bites of chocolate). Mostly, even with a man advantage for the last 50 minutes, the Quakes just never got it together tonight. I would also question Coach Kinnear’s decision to put Donovan on in place of Derosario to start the second half; I would have put Donovan on, for sure, but in place of Waibel and gone with a 3-5-2. Damn, with both Dallas and Colorado also losing tonight we blew a good shot to climb back into third and instead remain in the cellar.

Have you ever felt a true cold sweat

Dripping down the small of your back, the

Side of your face while you stand shaking

With a gun pointed at your chest?

I focused on the shirt he wore, color and texture

Glaring in my eyes, a wrinkled, bleached

Old blue t-shirt, some woman’s face and

Ugly slogan splashed across the front

Every time I closed my eyes my assailant

Shouted at me to open them, to look at him,

To see just who was going to end my miserable

Existence on this Earth.

That was what he said, miserable existence,

Which made me wonder why someone with

Such a vocabulary would be theatening

To send me to the Great Oblivion

The gunman wasn’t dressed well, wasn’t

Clean, wasn’t shaved, wasn’t even healthy

Looking, there was no surprise to see him

On the business end of the gun

My shaking legs reminded me that such

Concerns were not important, not how

I should be spending my last moments,

Not going to help me survive

You already have my money, my keys, my

Surrender so what else do you want, what else

Can I give you other than a few final

Breaths of this precious body?

The hand holding the black metal three feet from

Me came closer but the speed of its shaking increased,

I looked up into his eyes, he finally turned and raced away

I drew up in a great air and collapsed.

• From Brazil: SuperCoffee! Oh yeah, I can just taste the extra rich caffeine now.
• Market Research & the Marketing Plan: a free seminar on Aug. 17 from TechVentures that looks interesting enough for me to attend
• CIA: A really poor choice for Director
• Springsteen breaks heart of Republican governor: Pawlenty had best get ready for a whole lot more heartbreak!
• 6/6/6: The Beast, a movie from the mind of the man who gave us Nothing So Strange, the documentary about the assassination of Bill Gates [via Jim Gilligan, who gave us OutFoxed]
• Finally: the Revolution

Two years ago today it was Viv’s birthday.

Unfreaking believable! I thought the government had learned something from the last three years of scandals, but apparently the IRS is in a little ‘special place’ all its own. I mean, you’d think someone who worked there for 22 years would be taken seriously when she complained that the agency was violating its own rules in allowing a small San Jose company to avoid over $50 million in taxes legitimately owed, most likely because the company used a former high-ranking IRS executive to massage the deal. Brilliant, as the old guys in the Guinness commercial like to say.

Apparently some spammers got into my web host space and now I need to change passwords in many places. Swell.

I can honestly say I never expected to watch Jamie Kennedy’s Malibu’s Most Wanted, the story of a rich white boy ignored by his parents (Ryan O’Neal and the barely onscreen Bo Derek) who turns to ghetto culture for fulfillment instead. Embarassed and scared his son will screw up his campaign for governor, Dad and an advisor (Blair Underwood, showing that actors understand where the cheddar comes from) cook up a fake kidnapping to “scare the black out” of Kennedy.

Although JK is far too old to be the high schooler his character is, the movie pretty much works. Anthony Anderson and Taye Diggs as the least black black men you ever saw really contribute and Regina Hall is smart and sexy enough for any man.

surpringly funny