Category: Personal

Lots of coming of age movies are set in some wilderness, probably so the character count can be kept to a minimum and to provide more natural obstacles for the character(s) coming of age. Some place south of a tiny town a long bus ride out of Sydney, Australia, in 1979 probably fits the bill all around.

So you won’t be surprised that director Peter Collinson makes heavy use of the scenery, sounds and wildlife in 1980’s The Earthling, in which a very young Rick Schroder sees his parents die as their minibus slides off a cliff and is rescued by William Holden, hiking through the area on his way home to die. Both actors, alone onscreen for most of the film, do decent jobs.

There are too many cliches and glossed over bits to make this memorable, though, and the horrific death of Schroder’s parents probably puts this out of bounds for the younger children who’d otherwise make this a perennial. Collinson was an experienced director–this was his last movie and he died of cancer shortly after the release–but the screenplay by newbie Lanny Cotler (an environmentalist from Mendocino) really doesn’t give him enough material to work deeper.

not recommended

Fox Sports Net gave Man of the Match to Earthquakes keeper Pat Onstadt tonight in the game against Dallas but I say Landon Donovan’s goal in the 14th minute was the key play, not to mention his slick passing and tireless running up and down the field all game. Okay, Brian Mulrooney’s deep drive in the box in first half injury time ending with a terrific pass back into the center which Brian Ching touched into the net was their play of the game and hard to argue with a beauty like that.

Whichever choice you make, there is no doubt this was an important road win for San Jose. They withstood serious pressure over the last 10 minutes as the Burn did their best to pick up the tying goal. Here’s one indicator: the Burn had 13 corner kicks to none for our side. Onstadt is generally so emotionless but he must have been stoked after last week’s debacle.

Amusing aside: The Quakes are running a cute TV commercial featuring a preacher (does anyone know this actor?) who eventually turns around and shows the big team logo on the back of his suit jacket as he starts chanting “We want three! We want three!” Referring, of course, to the team’s goal this season of capturing their third MLS Cup, sentiment with which I obviously agree.

Just wondering… can I get the bosses to set up some sort of business trip to NJ area so I’ll be there on Aug. 3?

Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to the president, shows us today why most people have such low opinions of lawyers.

A new version of SlimBrowser (v3.98.01, yeah the developer uses an odd numbering system) is out and the big new feature is rendering of RSS feeds. Guess who’s featured along with BBC News, Yahoo! News and Slashdot on the sample RSS Feeds page.

[Originally posted to the Blogger Pro mailing list]

Not sure if anyone at Google is reading this list but… I am sure there are plenty of code-level improvements underneath and I do appreciate the effort. Still, since there was no public beta test, I will share my constructive feedback here:

1. What happened to the CTRL+ENTER and CTRL+SH+S keyboard shortcuts? Not everyone likes to shift to the mouse for everything.
2. What happened to the split frame? Some of us (I) appreciated the ability to read and/or copy and paste from previous posts.
3. The new success page (“Your blog published successfully.”) is a waste and requires extra effort to begin the next task. I would rather go to the Edit Posts screen with a success message added at the top (or somewhere visible).
4. The new design is very, um, big. Especially the text. I would just as soon have smaller text and more on the screen.

Props to the team, though, for finally clearing the issue with certain HTML tags (like lists) that caused excessive line feeds.

One of the reasons I love reading is that some books just catch you up in their own little world, so much so that you simply don’t want to put them down. Few books reach this level and so when an author is able to do it pretty much every time out I greedily grab new releases. If the author also happens to be a school days pal and uses the town and people we grew up with in, well…

Harlan Coben succeeds once again with Just One Look, the story of a wife whose husband ups and leaves the house late one night after she shows him an odd, old photograph. He doesn’t answer his cell phone, doesn’t return the rest of the night, doesn’t show up for work the next day. She doesn’t panic but does try and find him and along the way has her life and their children’s threatened.

Grace Lawson, the wife, is Coben’s first female lead and I think she shows his skill at character development by not being a stereotype or cardboard but having realistic depth and not just thinking like a man in drag. If anything, her husband is the 2D cutout, barely more than a hovering presence though I supposed nothing more is warranted. Some creepy Mafioso who are mostly on the side of good. One complaint: the underlying reason for these events is logical enough but I thought there weren’t enough clues dropped in, or even alternatives proposed.

I could go on but you’d better off spending the time reading this terrific novel

highly recommended

Work is very cool, thanks for asking. This week I spent a bunch of time developing an application in PHP/MySQL that will be deployed to our website when ready. Sadly for you and your desire to drool and fawn over my most excellent creation, it will be in a protected section of the site not accessible to the general public. Still, praise and compliments are easily spewed and I always appreciate them.

Watched the Frasier finale last night. I thought the writers did a pretty good job, bringing out the strongest elements of the lead actors, visiting some favorite regulars and tying up some loose ends. I thought they would have at least mentioned Maris, the source of so many joke over the years, but perhaps I missed some denouement in her story line having not watched the last few seasons. Little as I thought of him, I have to give props to Kelsey Grammer for keeping his character on top for 20 years: Way to go, dude!

I could be writing up an entry for Harlan Coben’s terrific new mystery twister. But y’all’ll have to wait because I’m sleepy. G’night!

Liverpool backed into Champions League qualification today when Southampton drew Newcastle 3-3; with only one game left, ‘Toon can no longer catch the Reds on points and Aston Villa at best can match points but loses on goal difference. This was, I imagine, one of the worst seasons in English football history with fourth place Pool nearer the bottom of the table than the top.

And on the business side of the wall, the prime minister of Thailand is battling a homegrown Liverpudlian billionaire real estate developer for the right to buy a large but not controlling interest in the FC. The investment infusion plus the CL cash might at least mean some serious transfer spending in the close season, we’ll have to watch and see.

You know a film is all about the artsy when most of the characters use accents that aren’t their own and the dialog is denser than TGI Friday’s Death by Chocolate dessert. 2002’s Laurel Canyon, written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, is just such a film.

Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale (an Englishwoman sporting an American accent) are engaged and move to his mother’s supposed to be empty house in Laurel Canyon; he’s starting a medical residency and she’s finishing her doctoral thesis. Mom is played by Frances McDormand, a legendary rock and roll producer now finishing up an album with raunchy English rocker Alessandro Nivola (despite the name, born in the USA); despite the 20-ish year age difference producer and singer are lovers. The final key player is Natascha McElhone, English-born playing an Israeli one year ahead of Bale in the residency program and his carpool driver.

Mom and rock band show up, unexpected of course, to use the house’s outbuilding recording studio. Bale has always resented and felted abandoned by her, as she pursued a life of hedonistic pleasure and music rather than being his parent (Dad is neither mentioned nor seen) and her presence is a stiffling imposition–she has another home in Malibu and is supposed to be staying there. Both Bale (by McElhone) and Beckinsale (by McDormand and Nivola) are tempted to stray.

Mainly the characters talk. And talk and talk. There’s a moderate amount of mostly-covered flesh flashed. Some minor interesting emotional revelations. Cholodenko seems satisfied with a stolid, languid pace and does find some interesting visuals, including the very last shot of Bale in the house’s pool.

mildly interesting

A new gallery with a few photos from our overnight to Monterey this weekend and here’s the cake. We stayed at the very nice, modestly priced BeachComber Inn in Pacific Grove (thanks, AskMefites!), visited the Aquarium (love them jellies!), ate at Goomba’s and went for a stroll on the boardwalk at Asilomar State Beach and Spanish Bay.

To the Editor,

In today’s column William Safire states “In last week’s apology before the Senate, Rumsfeld assumed ultimate responsibility.”

The one question I would love to see answered, by him or even better by a senior member of the Administration, is what this assumption actually means in practical terms. If Secretary Rumsfeld is not going to resign, as Safire states is unwarranted, than what is Rumsfeld’s statement other than words trying to absorb guilt like a sponge? Is he, like a pro athlete who’s mouthed off to a coach, gong to be benched for a game or two? Fined? Sadly, it seems like the Bush Administration, Mr. Safire and other Republicans are content to once again overlook bad actions based on easily mouthed but action-free apologies.

Spider Robinson is an old favorite, especially for his Callahan’s Saloon stories that go back over 25 years. The Callahan Touch, originally released in 1993, is the sixth of ten in the series.

Robinson is a master of the punning art and he shows it off throughout this tale. If you haven’t read any of the previous books, however, I’m not sure you’ll really get as much enjoyment from Touch as I did. Most of the characters are well worn, old friends that I’m meeting again and know well.

Although in science fiction aliens are not, of course, unusual, in the Earth of these set in the present stories they’re as unknown as in reality but several make appearances here as do a cluricaune, a half Far Darrig/half Pooky and a talking dog.

recommended to Callahan fans

Alan King was more of my parents’ generation than mine but I did grow up seeing him on Ed Sullivan, the Tonight Show and the movie screen. In fact they saw him live last year and gave a glowing review. King died this morning of lung cancer–at 76, less than a year older than my father by the way–and I remember him for his ability to be funny with the old schtick, the jokes and one liners, but also to grow in the ’80s and ’90s into a modern artist who could convey humor and pathos through stories. The title of this post is a good for instance, one of his gems summing up the essence of all Jewish holidays.

Honestly, I’m not sure I love the new Blogger editing interface. The old version, with it’s split between an authoring frame and the recent posts frame, was more appealing to me and I’ve never been terribly interested in adding comments, with the recent comment spam wars only adding to my disinterest. The goofy graphic displayed while waiting for an article to publish seems like a waste. Here’s a situation where having a personal installation might have made a difference.

“Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had,” our wonderful, thoughtful, obviously unbiased Vice President said today. I have to tell you, the laughing jag this article caused lasted for nearly 10 minutes.

I realize the NY Times doesn’t really publish a balanced set of reader letters and so even those written by supporters of Bush should be taken as part of this tilt. Still, in today’s set I note the repetition of the “Saddam was a really terrible guy” meme in those letters arguing against a Rumsfeld resignation: “Perhaps this is true, but it is also possible that if were it not for President Bush, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, adding to an estimated 300,000 Iraqis murdered by his regime and tortured in his prisons, including Abu Ghraib.”

What, I would ask these people, is the relevance? If there is an individual (or group) ruling another nation and that government seriously and savagely mistreats its own people, is it up to America to invade and overthrow? There is no proof, despite Administration lies over the past few years, that Iraq was any kind of threat to America and so that is no justification. Are we to become the world’s police, all on our own, and topple regimes in Cuba, Nigeria, Rwanda, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and several others that don’t come immediately to mind? How many years, thousands of troups and trillions of dollars are we to spend accomplishing this task?

Be serious and stop spouting nonsense that prevents us from reaching any sort of real resolution in Iraq and of the true terrorist threats to America and our allies. Because until you do life is just going to get worse. I surely agree with what Dan says; we need to acknowledge reality in order to save ourselves.

So I got to make my first Intransa business trip this week. Very short, up there Wednesday night back home Thursday night, but a very positive experience. While details wouldn’t be terribly appropriate, we (I traveled with Jay Weber, one of our excellent technical staffers) did go there to visit with an IBM group in Beaverton and install one of our systems in their lab. At the end of the day we had very positive feedback from the IBM team for the quality of our product and our effort.

I also spent half an hour on the phone at the request of an IBM Digital Media architect speaking with him and one of their solutions partners who’s interested in using us as the storage component in some upcoming deals. Participating in sales-oriented situations is definitely something I like doing, a lot, and hope for more opportunies as work goes forward. After all, my predecessor as product manager is now director of Asia/Pacific sales, and the Intransa execs seem very open to such transitions. We’ll see.