You know where you can stick it.

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.

Real sweat

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.

Coming soon-ish

Blow that whistle, what do we care?

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.

Today’s movie: Malibu’s Most Wanted

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

Yesterday’s movie: Much Ado About Nothing

Kenneth Branagh came blasting out of England in the ’80s, promising to be the next Olivier. One of the ways he chose to use his new-found clout is to bring versions of all of Shakespeare’s works to the screen. From 1993, Much Ado About Nothing is one of the comedies and probably one of my favorite movies ever.

Branagh, who wrote adaptation and directed, plays Benedick, a nobleman in the service of Don Pedro (Denzel Washington). Pedro and his men visit Seigneur Leonato, the Governor of Messina, and his family; in his party are his brother John (an evil Keanu Reeves) and Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard), a young, sweet, naive boy who is in love with Leonato’s daughter Hero (an enchanting Kate Beckinsale). Benedick is matched with Leonato’s niece, Beatrice, played by an amazing Emma Thompson.

The key plots are: Claudio and Hero’s love match, which John keeps trying to sabotage and Benedick and Beatrice’s pairing, a match that Don Pedro and Leonato conspire to arrange despite the sharp, antagonistic attitudes of the married in real life couple. The characters have complex relationships and with only eight major roles almost all are well developed, Hero and Don Pedro the main exceptions. Michael Keaton, in a minor turn, is a great Dogberry.

Beyond the sophisticated humor and terrific acting, Branagh as director has brought a beautiful, radiant vision of the Italian countryside on screen. Almost as if he had the lighting crew put a second Sun in the sky–which is something one of the digital FX houses might be able to do today but not a dozen years ago.

absolutely recommended

The 4400 ended its initial run tonight with a pretty snappy ending; when USA Network brings the show back for more, either as a weekly series or another limited run event, lots of cool possibilities.

In response to Missourians and others

Specifically, in response to the vote this past week and these Letters to the Editor in today’s Times:

Many reject the comparison but, as a married Caucasian heterosexual, the civil rights campaigns of 40 years ago perfectly resonate with the efforts to expand marriage to all today. Indeed, the recent vote in Missouri is an excellent example: Had a similar poll been take there in 1964, or 1954, does anyone doubt that non-White citizens would have been denied what reforms they sought?

Further, I find odd the continuing focus by the self-described pro traditional marriage forces on allowing homosexuals and lesbians into the club. If the needs of successful one man/one woman marriages are to be embodied in our laws and even Constitutions, why are such enemies as adultery and premarital sex not part of their legal agenda? The ultimate source of their position on this matter, the Bible, certainly explicitly condemns those acts as well but I wonder how well these supporters would fare on those grounds.

Today’s movie: A New Kind of Love

From 1963, husband and wife Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward play New Yorkers on an awkward collision in Paris in a lightweight comedy called A New Kind of Love. Written and directed by Melville Shavelson, Newman is a newspaper columnist sent to Paris as his boss’s idea of punishment (for sleeping with the boss’s wife!) and Woodward is in the city with her department store owner boss and co-worker to see the new designer lines. Woodward, though, has sworn off men and love after one bad relationship; the film’s challenge is to put them together and the mechanism is having her, in a wig and fake Eastern European accent, pretend to be a hooker who Newman, a man who has sex with every other attractive woman he meets, only hires to tell him Schehezerade-like tales. They’ve all done better.

not recommended

Aches of a 43 year old

Warning: This is a grilled cheese post! Lately my right knee has not been doing so well after visits to the gym. First the doctor said to take a gym vacation, take two Aleve twice a day and put on the occasional ice pack. Did that, went back to the gym and no real change. Went back to the doctor, who sent me to an othopedic specialist. He prescribed a month of physical theraphy plus two Aleve twice a day as long as I’m in therapy.

I went for the first treatment today. Nice place, convenient location. Everybody working there is very young, which is definitely another sign I’m older than I imagine myself to be. First the therapist did some testing and measurement–first time I’ve seen a protractor used in quite some time–and then sent me off to her aide for stretching.

You wouldn’t think stretching could make me feel so creaky, but then you’d be wrong. Since you’re all smarter than that, you probably were smirking behind my back, which isn’t very nice but that is expected. The aide probably did understand the discomfort without me saying anything since he offered an ice pack after we were done. A big ice pack with my legs elevated, that felt very nice.

The therapist also noticed I have a flat (“pronated”) right foot and suggested this is playing a part in my knee’s travails. So when I exercise, and I am allowed to go back to the gym, I have to concentrate on keeping the pressure on the outside of my foot. The first part of my stretching for this visit was a five minute warmup on a stationary bike, and I had to constantly remind myself of this, remembering is not easy.

Now I have to do this stretching every day for a month, in addition to the workouts. And find a pair of cheap, yet uncomfortable, orthotics. Swell but as long as I get rid of the knee ache okay.

GOOG? Why?

A lot of the crap surrounding the Google IPO confuses me. I think Brin and Page’s not just shareholders first operating plan is fine, even an understandable attempt at running a corporation in a different and potentially better way. But the distinctly negative way the company is talking to potential investors and treating them is still strange. Clearly there are plenty of people willing to invest on the specified terms but every time I turn around some bit of news comes out to make the concept even worse. Got to admit that I’m not at all interested in getting in on the IPO.