Category: Personal

Happy Second, Grum

I finally know how much happiness the right woman (or partner of appropriate gender) can bring–thanks TS1!–so I’m real glad for my Canadian buddy to have the same joy.

And, okay Grum, I hear you, though that was just one example and fair enough for me since I am not a fanboy like some people.

Also, you might want to add status.blogger.com to your RSS subscriptions to track the irregular flakiness.

Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd

David Kelley’s spin-off from The Practice, starring everyone’s favorite Star Trek captain, was supposed to be called The Practice: Fleet Street but now will have the oddish moniker Boston Legal. Oddish because Kelley just had a series on Fox called Boston Public (starring, in the second and last season, the hottest Star Trek female) and also because he had his big break as a producer with L.A. Law. I know Boston thinks of itself as a more formal and elegant city than Los Angeles but still…

Today’s movie: Spider-Man 2

Was looking forward to Spider-Man 2 since walking out of the theater two years ago. Was I satisfied? Not as much as many others were to judge from the newspapers and blogs though it was okay. I still have a bit of trouble with Tobey Maguire as an action hero (can’t wait for a buff, goateed Ryan Reynolds) and at 29 he’s getting a bit old to play a 20 year old anyway.

My biggest complaint is that the picture overall lacks coherence, that director Sam Raimi wasn’t able to ride herd on the posse of producers, cast and studio execs with their endless notes and suggestions. The bits and pieces seem jammed together, not seamless as they ought to. Example: after the subway fight, Spidey is laying flat on the floor and the camera dives into the insignia on his chest to transition to the next scene, a common enough device but to be effective it needs to be used throughout the movie not just the one time. And couldn’t someone have sent Alfred Molina a personal trainer so he wouldn’t look flabby during his shirtless scenes?

recommended, good but not great

California Clasico: Galaxy 2-1 Earthquakes

What a frustrating match!!! Yes, any loss is a problem but tonight we went down because of better acting from Los Angeles, poor passing especially in the midfield, below normal goalkeeping and a job from the officials. Props to Carlos Ruiz for the two Galaxy goals, both were legitimate.

The Sweet One adds her perspective on my viewing habits.

Landon had some sweet moves but in the end couldn’t connect strongly enough with Derosario and Ching, though Dwayne did get the first goal of the match. Onstadt faced far too many chances, especially the first LA goal off a pointless corner in first half injury time; still, his clearances were poor most of the night.

Referee Kevin Stott was pitiful though one can’t simply pin the loss on him in whole. But even at the very end he couldn’t control the field and I hope the MLS gives this performance of his a very careful review. The second yellow, and attendent dismissal, to Brian Mullan was more than sad because the card resulted from a terrific acting job from Ruiz–there wan’t even any contact though the Guatemalan international spent two minutes writhing in pain to cinch the deal.

Worse, it came just after Brian Ching was brought down in the box by Ryan Suarez and Stott let it go without so much as a nod. All told the ref gave at least six yellows to the Quake players, one at the end of the first half to Derosario that never got explained, while allowing far too many fouls by LA to go unmarked.

Better luck Wednesday night as they host the Dallas Burn, who also lost this weekend, at Spartan Stadium for Hawaiian Night. Next Saturday they travel to Jersey to meet the MetroStars but will be without Landon, Ching and Mullan who are heading to Chicago as part of the US squad for a Sunday friendly against Poland; MetroStars’ midfielder Eddie Gaven and defender Eddie Pope will also play for the US.

Religious lines

Access Denied explores the growing trend among religious doctors and pharmacists to refuse to write or fill prescriptions for birth control pills because these people believe that in some small number of situations, a fertilized egg will fail to attach to the woman’s uterine lining. These religious nuts, if I can use that term with semi-politeness, state that life begins at fertizilization, even though generally accepted medical practice finds that pregnancy begins ony when the fertilized egg attachs to the uterine lining, and hence the pill causes a chemical abortion and since they believe that abortion is murder, they cannot help women with the drugs.

This is, to me, one of those interesting questions about where reasonable lines can be drawn between good and bad. My intitial reaction on following Joe’s link was the same as his–what do these people think they’re doing, don’t they have an obligation as medical professionals to serve all people equally without inputting their personal beliefs? But as the morning wears on, my certainty is fading at least a bit.

We all live in a universe of uncertainty and lack of control over our own cricumstances, subject to personal limitations and imperfections and, in the end, victims of culturalization–brainwashed by the environment in which we’re born and live. So some of us, in Alabama or Fallujah, make decisions based on the personal understanding of religious doctrine and try to live by what appears internally to be righteousness. And then others disagree with that personal understanding.

Should such people be harshly criticized for making professional decisions on this basis? I wonder, especially since I’ve always believed that we work to live, not live to work, that the personal comes ahead of the professional. Having said this, I would add that individuals who make professional choices based on personal preferences ought to do so based on facts; in this instance, whether or not birth control pills actually do cause an abortion, which the linked article casts into doubt. Then again, what is a fact? People like me who believe that science is the answer to that question will almost always find agreement impossible with the previously-mentioned medical professionals since they look to the Bible for truth.

America is the land of the free, the focal point of today’s celebrations, and how can we argue with another American’s freedom to base behavior on such core beliefs? While that sentence might read as rhetoric, I actually mean it. The patients surely have other doctors and pharmacies to patronize and if there are no doctors or pharmacists in a given area willing then perhaps some true believers of the opposite stripe need to get the necessary education and relocate. So in the end I guess my position is completely opposite to where I began.

[Access Denied via Jennett.Radio and Wake Up]

Tonight’s movie: The Medallion

Why Jackie Chan agreed to make this movie is confusing. I know that deals often take a long time to come together but he must have been aware of Chow Yun Fat’s Bulletproof Monk. Both films are so much the same that it’s not funny, except that Chan tries to put a humorous spin with the use of Brit comic Lee Evans as his partner/foil.

Plenty of eye candy: Claire Forlani is properly luscious as the third member of their Interpol team, Christy Chung has a short bit as Evans’ lethal wife and Nicola Berwick is the bad bitch. Julian Sands doesn’t go far enough over the top playing the bad guy. Alex Bao is nearly not there as the child monk who brings forth the power of the medallion.

Somehow this took five writers to put together! And the direction seemed to be on the order of: Put the camera here, step to your marks here, come on Jackie, enunciate!

not recommended

Spent the day fecking around with music, finding that iTunes for Windows is not the devil’s spawn even though goddam says it’s the dark side–and she should know. Plus watching soccer, always doing that on the weekends these days. Feck baseball.

Tony Robbins Time

Surprising how fast three and a half months can go by, but my contract as product manager at Intransa has finished. For better or worse, our new-ish VP of Marketing decided he would rather use the budget on someone significantly senior to me so no renewal or conversion to perm. Definitely been a cool time, though, with many assignments thrown my way that I’d never met before but the response in every occasion was very positive.

So, for the short term at least, I’m moving into the Sales team. Talk about new challenges! But I’ve been interested in putting myself to this test for awhile now and the sink or swim will be up to me. The specific project is to drive qualified leads out of trade show booth visitor lists, meaning lots of phone calls. I’ll be working together with one of my good friends at the firm who is very optimistic and positive about our success. I’m doing finger-strengthening exercises for the long weekend!

Code folding?

Reading through a recent feature request thread in the UltraEdit forums, I saw repeated requests for Ian to add code folding. Guess my amateurness is showing but I couldn’t understand what this is. Although I was getting an idea towards the end, I googled the phrase and found Matt Stephens’ anti-folding rant as the first result. Perhaps my coding efforts are not that complex but I agree with Matt–and I know at least one of my super coder buddies would too, especially:

If you’re staring at your program and can’t see the wood for the trees, code folding is the wrong answer. The answer is to structure your program better; encapsulate the details into different classes, use interfaces, small methods, and so on.

(Oh yeah, what is code folding then? The ability to designate a region–the MSFT term–of code and have the editor show or hide it as desired.)

What about privacy?

Well, face it, the time has come and gone for this archaic concept anyway. The recent Court of Appeals ruling holding email free from traditional protections, where technology ran ahead of the law, is but one more foot stomping your personal preference into the mud. Get used to it.

California’s legislators are trying to do some good for their constituents, running against the tidal wave of corporate lobbying. For an example look at last year’s SB-1, which became effective yesterday after a judge refused a request from banks and other financial companies to block it; the law requires financial companies to obtain customers’ permission before selling or sharing their personal information. Bankers are very unhappy, not surprising since selling this data reportedly gives them $400 million a year in revenue, and will appeal even though they stood up and supported the bill when the final compromise (the original restrictions were much tougher) was announced.

I picked up my new glasses late this afternoon. They are very stylish, or so I’m told, from Dolce and Gabbana, but for the first time I needed progressive lenses. The doctor wasn’t kidding when he told me I would have an adjustment period! Damn but these are annoying and the improved vision better be worth it in the end.