The End of Angel

For starters, let’s just say Joss Whedon didn’t come close to the Buffy finale. The crew did wrap up the Wolfram & Hart storyline, more or less, and all in a quite uplifting way. I just didn’t come away with the expected satisfaction and sense of completion. Perhaps that’s because there’s talk of TV movies to continue Angel’s tale…

Now I see

Just finished watching today’s UEFA Cup championship match between Olympique Marseilles and FC Valencia, which the Spaniards won with ease 2-0. I understand better why Manchester United headman Alex Ferguson was willing to toss aside goalkeeper Fabien Barthez for young American Tim Howard.

Barthez returned to Marseilles after being dismissed by ManU, though he ran afoul of FIFA transfer rules and had to sit for three months for the next opening. He’s done reasonably well over the last five months and matched well with the team’s sturdy defense to reach this tournament final. But after a meandering, meaningless first half was almost done, his lack of complete mental toughness came out and ruined the team.

With a beautiful cross to the far side of the six yard box from Torres, Mista chested the ball down and only Barthez was between the Valencia striker and his goal. Instead of cutting down the angle or sliding and throwing his hands in the way, the French National Team keeper, a man whose earned many medals and trophies over the last dozen years, instead chose to slide into Mista feet first.

Penalty kick. Even worse, Barthez was sent off with a red card for a professional foul. The decision by referee Pierluigi Collina, widely ranked as the world’s best, could not be disputed and was not, even in comments by the losing coach after the game.

Vicente stepped up to the spot and, after waiting nearly two minutes for (rarely used, 20 year old) substitute Jeremy Gavanon to take his place, easily put the ball into the net. Marseilles never again really threatened and a second goal, just before the hour from Mista, sealed the trophy for Valencia. A great year for them as this will look lovely in their display next to the one for the 2003-2004 Primera Liga title.

Water mains and roadways

We were out tonight taste testing the new low carb wraps at Quizno’s (not bad) and arranging a tuxedo rental at Men’s Wearhouse (silver tie and vest) and ran into one of those things that make you go “Huh?” on the drive home. Traffic on El Camino Real, the most major of thoroughfares in the South Bay/Peninsula, was slowing to a crawl and looking up ahead showed why.

There was water gushing 30 or 40 feet up into the air on one side of the road past the next traffic light and cars were being merged to the left to avoid the police cars and fire trucks. I didn’t think this was so bad, people were moving smartly, but then I got up close to see the details and here you go: the valve to shut off this main was in the middle lane of three lanes on our side of El Camino.

That’s right. The geniuses who built our water pipeline system put the shutoff for a main in the middle of the biggest road in two counties. Tell me, how smart is that?

Was it my imagination or did last night’s episode of The Simpsons just out and out go after the Bush Administration? As always an excellent and funny half hour but blatantly political. Kind of a huge surprise to see something so anti-Bush on a network owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Sopranos

Tonight’s episode was really something else! I don’t think I’ve seen a longer dream sequence–not counting that whole season of Dallas–and the dead guys plus Annette Benning. Just wow. And still David Chase managed to continue the development of Tony’s character and push along the NY storyline.

People driving by in cars so loud that my house’s windows shake make me want to grab an RPG and blow them off the street.

Today’s movie: The Earthling

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

Donovan! Mulrooney! Onstadt!

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.

More feedback for Google on the new Blogger

[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.

Book review: Just One Look

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

How is work?

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.

Bye, Frasier

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!

LFC->CL

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.

Tonight’s movie: Laurel Canyon

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