BillSaysThis

LOL: My GeneFilter

Did you see U2 on last night’s SNL? They were excellent, of course, performing Vertigo and Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own and for the first time in all the years of this show that I can think of, came back for a third song (I Will Follow, from their first release almost as long ago) during the wasted couple of minutes that generally precede the credits. And apparently went on to play at least one more for the studio audience as the broadcast ended.

Ted Kennedy complains about a new video game that allows users to play the assassination of his brother John, though only from the historically documented lone gunman sequence and not the tinfoil hat conspiracy scenarios. I wouldn’t want to play this, I don’t care for any bloody, violent games, but I do wonder how this is any worse or better than games which recreate other historical events like both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam.

Interesting NY Times disection of the 17 year hell that was the development process of Kevin Spacey’s upcoming biopic of Bobby Darin. Besides being interesting simply to understand how the movie moved from Point A to Point B to final release, the article is also an example of truly balanced journalism given the huge number of participants and therefore points of view.

The first time around, the balance of romance and jokes, not to mention the quality of the jokes, was spot on. In this sequel, there’s a fourth credited screenwriter and a change in directors, neither change to the good. There are jokes this time, of course though too many are obvious set ups rather than flowing organically from the story, Zellweger’s chubbiness seems too substantial for the four weeks the movie claims have passed since the first, and, worst of all, there is a completely needless heavy dramatic turn about two thirds in that brings all good cheer to a thudding halt.

All in all, Bridget Jones – The Edge of Reason, is a pretty good example of why you shouldn’t make sequels to romantic movies. Action films can be just as formulaic with them but in those films the audience is looking for more big booms, some high speed chases, a good villain and the hero saving everything in the last few minutes having nearly avoided losing everything. In movies where the lead character is looking for love and ends up finding it, a sequel has a lot of trouble because right off the story must account believably for why the relationship is off.

Let me tell you, using an airport drug bust with a half dozen cops pointing loaded AK-47s at Bridget as the external event that everntually brings the two lovers back together–but not before all humor and romance is lost as she faces 10-15 years in a Thai prison–is so over the top in the wrong direction that I cannot imagine how not one of the writers, producers, lead actors, nor studio executives stopped it. And while I applaud three major studios for making a film with a pleasantly plump over 30 actress as the star, shoving this factor constantly to the front of the screen gives it the weight of a gimick where subtlety would have been much better.

not recommended

PS: This wasn’t my conscious choice for it but I will note that this write up is the 300th such post I’ve made to the blog in just a bit over 3.5 years. Nice to reach milestones and fun to continue the effort.

You know Tom DeLay is facing a pretty big problem when Republican mouthpiece David Brooks starts pointing out the chinks in DeLay’s armor as he does in today’s columns, A Scandal Waiting to Happen. Even if Brooks does take extreme care to portray DeLay otherwise as positively as he can and the essay is more about why the Texas exterminator ought to go before he screws up the almost at hand conservative Nirvana.

Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress aren’t even willing to wait for the newly-elected members to show up in January before beginning the legislative assault that will implement their sad social agenda. Last night, the leadership inserted language further constraining abortion rights into a completely unrelated spending bill that must be passed before midnight tonight to prevent a government shutdown. Despite plans by Senator Barbara Boxer to try and prevent passage, apparently this will slide through like the greased pig it so clearly resembles.

In a sign that Bush hasn’t rid himself of all potential high level dissenting voices, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan raised alarms in the investment world yesterday over the increasing Federal deficit, albeit indirectly by talking about the potential negative impact of the rapidly increasing U.S. current account deficit. That deficit is impacted by more than just federal spending, of course, but there is a fairly close connection.

And one wonders how much time is left (to Bush, to the Chinese, to anyone) to deal with the rising nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea. American intelligence now estimate madman Kim Jong Il has at least six functional nuclear weapons and the Iranians, despite an agreement with European governments leading the effort to the contrary, are racing to complete the enrichment of at least some uranium hexaflouride, a gas that can be enriched into bomb fuel.

Continuing the series from here.

By the way, you can listen to all of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, the full version of every song in your choice of media players/formats (though no OGG) over at U2.com. Just judging by the first five tracks–you have to click each one separately–this is a monster. Definitely going to be worth the $10 or $12 retail when the stores have it Tuesday.

Another puzzler. Fry’s lent me a very nice Toshiba while they hold LittleSteven hostage. Comes with XP SP2 (Home, not Pro, but for a short period not too significant), Office 2003 (S&T, not Pro but again n/t/s), and Norton Anti-Virus preinstalled so only needed to grab a few small patches on startup, not the usual headache. Plus my backup system (Eazy Backup and a Ximeta NAS) worked like a charm so no data loss.

But! And this is one of those small but really annoying things, how do I shut off the “You’ve got mail” sound that plays every time Outlook has incoming? I unclicked the option in Outlook itself. I went into the Windows Control Panel Sounds applet and switched to the No Sounds setting, which is supposed to turn off all preset event-based sounds.

Yet I still hear this with every new message, even when Outlook recognizes it as spam. Uggh!

Two minutes later: Okay, I found the culprit. Toshiba includes an idiotic utility to do this, hidden in Outlook’s Add-ins. I had to go to Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options | Add-in Manager, that’s five levels down, just to see Mail Speak (TOSHIBA). I mean really guys, WTF?

The Big Guy sends along this Citroen C4 video, not sure if you could really call it an ad, more like a mashup of car, giant robot and dance music.

Matt the PVR Man points out this really great version of U2’s Vertigo by a young English R&B star Lemar. This is just the singer, playing acoustic guitar, in a BBC radio studio and he really gives the song a different, romatic feel. Not that I don’t love the original too, there are too few out and out rockers I hear these days and this one really hits the spot.

Yesterday, Peter Yared, who I worked with at NetDynamics (we bought his early all-Java IDE company JRad) and Sun, came out of stealth mode with his new company ActiveGrid and announced funding from two major VC firms. Interesting, positive commentary from the LooselyCoupled blog and PHPEverywhere. He also has a strong manager working with him, a guy I knew at Sun named Jeff Veis, and the two VC board members are tech legends: Mitchell Kertzman (Liberate, Sybase, Powersoft) and Jean-Louise Gassee (Apple, Be).

Best of luck to Peter and Crew, and best wishes that your next generation application server be even more successful than the one we all did together.

For the third straight year, playmaker Landon Donovan has won the Honda Player of the Year award, given to the top American soccer player. DeMarcus Beasley, definitely one of my favorite players as well, was second and defender Carlos Bocanegra third. Donovan becomes the first player to win three in a row and he was already the youngest winner two years ago, though DMB would have beat that and still could if he wins next year.

This probably seals the deal in terms of him joining Bayern Leverkusen, the German club that owns his contract, when the transfer window opens with the new year. If he does, will FoxSportsWorld show more of Leverkusen’s games? They broadcast one German league match every Saturday morning now, not sure how the specific matches are chosen. Playing in Europe is important for Landon to take his game to the next level and the timing is right for America’s World Cup 2006 effort.

For the second time in a few months, my precious LittleSteven Toshiba laptop is in the shop. Last time it was the hard drive, this time the screen is dying. Some part called an inverter. Fry’s gave me a decent loaner, have to love the newer screens and their sharpness, but the wasted time setting everything up and then transferring data back when LittleSteven comes home is more than annoying. Not to mention that the service counter staffer took over an hour and a quarter to fill in a few forms and get the loaner.

Karl sez: Selective Constitutionists – leave T.O. alone. Damn straight.

According to this morning’s Times, new agency boss Porter J. Goss has told C.I.A. employees that their job is to “support the administration and its policies in our work.” Now call me naive, call me stupid, I don’t care, but in my ever so humble opinion the job of every single employee of the C.I.A. and all the other government intelligence agencies is to uncover and analyze information on potential threats to this country (and secondarily allied countries as well) and make sure the end product is clearly understood at the appropriate government level. Then elected and appointed officials can determine what action might be necessary, influenced by policy as such decisions always. Except, perhaps, for the agency directors and their direct reports, no intelligence staffers should take (currently in office) Executive Branch policies into account while handling their daily to-dos. Geez, this is the stuff that makes my blood boil!

Later: Kristof, in a more comprehensive column, adds this on the topic: “[The intelligence community’s] crucial role is not so much to steal secrets abroad but to resist political pressures at home and offer unwelcome analyses. That will be much less likely now that heads are rolling down the corridors of the C.I.A.’s directorate of operations.” Especially interesting are his answers to the question “So what should we expect in a second term?”

Now that I’ve had a chance to see more of the new shows–and I feel like doing it–here’s the second installment. The first was back on 9/23.

Of the four “Yet to be Decideds” I’ve only seen one. Lost and Kevin Hill, at least so far, still haven’t jumped past their time slot competition or even gotten enough interest to push me to watch them on the second TV (where TS1 does watch Lost) while recording the #1s. Clubhouse was cancelled so fast I never had a chance to even really think about it.

Desperate Housewives I have watched and it’s a real treat. A primetime soap that brings to mind some of the best, like Dallas or LA Law (to me Law was a soap inside a legal framework), with sharply defined characters. Especially the four leads, all hotties and past the legal drinking age at that. Ongoing air of mystery on multiple fronts: Why did Mary Alice really kill herself? What is that handsome Mike plotting and who’s his target? Yummy.

The Simpsons have come back with two typically strong episodes and you wonder, even with the extra-huge writing staff (or perhaps even despite it), how they keep going after 16 years where others can’t manage three or four. Reality is just irrelevant to these people, unless it would be handy. To give an example from the last episode, Marge has a contractor build a new kitchen and a caption tell us two years have passed before the work is finished yet everything else in the episode takes place in a matter of days. See what I mean?

Speaking of which, Enterprise. I’m still a dedicated Trekkie and watch every week but more and more this series seems like just what it is: anything to keep the Star Trek franchise dollars flowing. The recent three episode arc with Brent Spiner wasn’t bad, though the first two parts were much better than the third, and the upcoming Vulcan and Romulan episodes sound promising. Keep in mind that I’m part of the minority that ranks Deep Space Nine as the best of all the versions and so had no problem at all with spending all of Enterprise’s Season Two on the Xindi War; I just thought the producers didn’t execute nearly as well on it as most of the same staff did on the much longer Dominion War. There were questions about returning for this year but I think if the ratings so far hold up that Season Four is a near lock, given the promise of more lucrative syndication sales from a longer skein.

Joan of Arc is on at the same time as the previous show making this the only time slot when I need to use the two set strategy (so far, though Tuesdays at 10 are another when FX is showing one of their original series). Leaving our heroine at the end of last season questioning her sanity and whether or not her conversations with God a side effect of Lyme disease, she was both cured and confirmed that it wasn’t the disease. God still takes on various, occasionally recurring bodies, drops some semi-obtuse guidance and walks away with a flippant hand wave. For a show featuring teens and God, not bad at all though the subplots focusing on Mom and Dad too often don’t work well as mirrors of the Joan plot.

life as we know it started well but has struggled with focus given the large cast. Nice of the writers to give us well-developed characters even into the minor roles but some need to become cardboards; otherwise it’ll just implode. The show hasn’t been on the last couple of weeks so I wonder if it might just disappear altogether.

Never really got into Andromeda, the Kevin Sorbo far future action series, until the end of last season but I must say the creative crew have definitely been drinking from a different straw since coming to SciFi channel. So far they’ve mixed together high tech, mysticism and a sort of semi-Oriental, almost Indian Old West to give Sorbo’s Captain Dylan Hunt a most intriguing quest to discover his true identity.

Charmed, Vegas, Joey: Guilty pleasure TV, no doubt.

Without a Trace is not, despite frequent CBS advertising claims, the best show on TV. But it is good and has completely displaced ER, which used to be one of my favorites but has completely fallen off the table. Coming up with interesting and different disappearances every week is becoming a strain as the show approaches its 60th episode but the cast are really good and the production crew have a real strong feel for visuals, editing and pacing. One does wonder what happened to the La Paglia divorce continuing subplot or if the writers simply wrote it off.

The Wire continues to justify the cost of HBO all by itself; if you don’t subscribe the first season is now out on DVD. This third season seems to be more about the main characters and their relationships (to each other, at home and to their work) in contrast to the tight focus of the first two on the two sides of a single major case. To keep from sliding, the producers brought in some major fiction names (Richard Price and Dennis Lehane, to name two) to write a few of the scripts. Even with a few episodes left, I’m already salivating thinking about the major case I expect to see next year. Especially if the storyline for City Councilman Tommy Carcetti doesn’t wrap up because he could be a major player, intersecting with Stringer Bell’s ambitions to move into the money train that is politics.

The second seasons of Carnivale and Deadwood are next in the HBO Sunday night rotation.

I haven’t watched any of the “won’t watch,” though TS1 is now a CSI fan so some nights I get a little bleedthrough and dr. vegas is another early death. Still not watching any reality shows, Cold Case, the CSIs or West Wing (making me fairly unusual in the blogging ranks) and only the original Law & Order–Dennis Farina needs more elbow room and the writing crew needs to stop phoning it in or this warhorse’ll drop of its own weight. Also giving a pass to HBO’s Family Bonds, Showtime’s HUFF, and the once wonderfully creative (at least the first season) Malcolm in the Middle.

ORA != ORA != “Wild Thing”, but COne may soon.

PA not so Blue through and through: School mandates alternate evolution theory, while even Congressmen leave room for debate on their own ______ (I want to use an insulting term here but can’t quite settle on the appropriate one so read and fill in for yourself).

Extra Anchor is Enterprise extra (very exciting). Still in Hollywoodland, writer/director Roger Avery thinks Justice is not Blind though one, as always, wonders.

http://www.ournet.md/~fngraph/

WordprocessingML Transform Inference Tool

http://www.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/miscellaneous/mandel/mandel.html

My how things have changed dep’t.

Maybe not so much

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000720.html

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041115-024454-5382r.htm

Blood boiler

http://www.fallujah.us/ (embedded video on this page)

Scary

Once I got started it was hard to stop. Lots of vias left off. Explore at your own risk.

How to never miss a TV episode with BitTorrent and RSS. Note that the comments include several alternative ways to implement a system to get the same results. [via PVR Blog]

MyPublisher Deluxe: Create oversized full color hardcover books for $2.99 a page filled with your own photos. [via Garret]

Microsoft alum Nathan Myhrvold runs a firm that doesn’t make anything, but it’s hoarding the key to a new business age: intellectual property. “Myhrvold won’t comment on these activities, but sources say he has already purchased about 1,000 patents.” In one year. [via /.]

Later: Myrhvold will be Charlie Rose’s guest tonight on the PBS talker.

The ‘semi-autobiographical’ movie about a woman born to rock, just never quite succeed,

Prey for Rock & Roll is a glimpse into the life of co-writer Cheri Lovedog (called Jacki, played by Gina Gershon) and what one assumes are amalgamations of people she met and played with during her days as part of the LA punk scene between about 1980 and the early ’90s.

Jacki’s just turned 40 and wondering if the time’s come to give up her dream but her band might just get that big break, if some sleezy promoter can be believed. Lori Petty plays Faith, the band’s lead guitarist, who teaches wannabes during the day and is in love with the band’s drummer Sally. Drea de Matteo (Sopranos, Joey) is the bass player, a trust fund baby, and way past well done on drugs, drinking and a bad boyfriend. Who rapes Sally, but gets paid back by Jacki (she runs a tattoo shop, so go figure) and Sally’s brother Animal (named by her for the Muppet’s drummer, played by Marc Blucas), whose just turned up after doing a dime for manslughter of their stepfather (who was raping Sally).

Lots of angsty, inner thought voiceover from Gershon which is fine if you want to hear Lovedog’s, well, inner thoughts, and less interesting if you want a better movie. The women are punkers, more or less, and this is no Hollywood flick so no one looks all that pretty, dresses nicely and every scene is cheap and messy. The director, Alex Steyermark, has mostly produced music and soundtracks for movies and this is first time directing. He’s not a natural but doesn’t get swallowed up by the material either. Which reminds me, if you don’t dig RiotGrrl rock, that’s gonna be a problem.

not really recommended

We started out watching Russell Crowe’s Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, the HBO Saturday night premiere, but it was so bloated and ponderous and, well, full of itself that we turned it off after an hour in favor of something with nowhere near the same ambition, Tim Allen’s goofy The Santa Clause 2. You know, we had some laughs and smiles and sometimes ambition and a budget to match just don’t get you a great movie; Master and Commander had such a big budget three studios (Fox, Universal and Disney’s Miramax) had to split the cost.

Anyway, SC2 picks up a eight years after the first and all of a sudden he’s de-Santafying because he missed the small print on the card he got when becoming The Man. What does it say? He must bring a Mrs. Clause to the North Pole before the stroke of midnight Christmas Eve or else. Back in the Real World his son is running into trouble and so Allen wants to get back there anyway. Let’s just say that the two problems collide and meanwhile some toys get uppity, driving the plot sufficiently for the much lower ambitions of this kid-targeted flick. Cute, simple, fair share of cliches but in the end that’s okay.

modestly recommended