BillSaysThis

Sure, this was a SCOTUS decision but you can be completely sure that Scalia and Rhenquist were completely in tune with the Administration in upholding Pennsylvania’s joke of a congressional map. I especially liked the conservative justices attempt (beaten back, fortunately) to utterly free states from federal oversight of this matter. If by like you understand that I meant sickened to my stomach.

Trust me, put aside any piddly little concerns about Kerry you might have and vote for him in November. Get out of the house and to the polling station, get your absentee ballot to avoid the crap electronic voting machines if that’s your preference. But if you can’t make that modest expenditure of time and energy, then in 2005 or 2006 don’t come around here crying and whining about the sad and terrible events and decisions coming from a second Bush term.

In 1980 I thought that a Reagan win would be terrible and that I ought to consider transferring to a school in Canada or elsewhere if he won but this go round I am much more serious. A small beach community on the eastern coast of Australia sounds better every time I think about it.

“You would have to cut off both my arms before I let go of him because I would have them both wrapped around him.” So says Liverpool head man Houllier in response to rumors of £20M bids coming from ManU or Arsenal for his captain, Steven Gerrard. Which is good because the midfielder is key to any hope of improvement next season.

Key comment from LordB while watching Man on Fire: This movie is so slow we can sit here doing play by play and not miss a thing. Tony Scott is a veteran director with plenty of taut thrillers in his past, so I don’t really understand why he didn’t cut the 146 minute run time down to 100-110. Almost every scene is bloated, slow, almost languid except when he’s doing his MTV thousand cuts per minute, shake the camera to make you dizzy imitation.

Denzel Washington is great, even trying to get through this morass, and he has great chemistry with Christopher Walken–why haven’t they worked together before? Dakota Fanning, if she doesn’t burn out, could be one of the great ones, she’s just intuitive and natural in all her scenes.

not recommended

Loretta’s Back: Indeed, I’ve heard the duet off this new Loretta Lynn release (Portland, Oregon) and it was quite the eyeopener. Not much a White Stripes fan, and Jack White could sure use a complete makeover, but this tune rocks.

Joe, you misunderstood the point of the exercise. And somehow I doubt people clicking through from Jeremy’s page to mine (which is what I was referring to, not people finding that entry through a Google search) are looking for penis enhancement.

Update: Joe, understanding is everything.

Six months on, Jeremy’s anti-spam PageRank exercise is still paying dividends, bringing in hits to my site every single day.

I’ve been looking through the multitude of case studies Microsoft has posted and came across one that is particularly interesting: Microsoft TV Information Systems: Hardware Development at Microsoft. This covers some aspects of Microsoft’s internal development process but what I found especially interesting is the mention of “[m]ore than 250 Solaris-based servers” right at the start. The white paper was posted in early March, weeks before the historic deal the two companies made to close their legal wrangling, but one does wonder if the approval process took that into account.

Romantic comedy isn’t easy. There are far too many ways to fall into cliches, to make plot movements through a simple wave of the hands or lose it by poor casting of the loving couple. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is not the perfect example of a romantic comedy but it doesn’t fall off the pier due to any of those three common pitfalls and ends up delivering an enjoyable couple of hours.

Matthew McConaughey has the kind of relaxed, soft pace that lends itself well, as he’s shown in EdTV and The Wedding Planner (though he was badly matched in the latter with Jennifer Lopez); he doesn’t show nearly as well in the big action films he apparently prefers. Kate Hudson gets a bit beyond the generic in this film, especially in the scenes where she’s going bonkers on the guy, though I’d suggest she get some better advice in role selection.

Director Donald Petrie has pretty bland oevre but seems to hit the occasional double, give him credit for a light touch here where he could have gone overboard–the bits with Mrs. DeLauer and Hudson’s girlfriend pretending to be a therapist, for instance. The soundtrack was reasonably memorable too, and made nice use of the classic Carly Simon tune You’re So Vain. An enjoyable diversion.

recommended

Let’s just say the Earthquakes, especially the defenders, played like crap tonight and leave it at that.

The Sharks’ third goal today was so smoooov! Jonathon Cheechoo took a pass from Brad Stuart as he was crossing in front of the crease and pushed it back through his legs, with his stick going through too, straight in under Aebischer’s legs (“a highlight-reel staple for the foreseeable future” according to the AP report). Got to give props to excellent goaltending from Nabakov and the goals by Patrick Marleau following up his Game One hat trick, Vinny Damphousse and Wayne Primeau (an empty netter!).

Oh yeah! Danny Murphy’s penalty gives Liverpool a crucial victory at Manchester United.

“We’re not idiots, though we may act from time to time as not the smartest,” Diebold President Robert J. Urosevich told California regulators investigating the company’s performance. So, Mr. Urosevich, given your company’s recent track record, do you think we should still use your machines this November in what is potentially the most important presidential election since World War II?

The master bath toilet has been making gurgling noises for several minutes the last few days now after showers are taken–air in the line?–but no other signs of distress. Until this morning when the shower in that bath did not completely drain after TS1’s morning fresher. Drano cleared it but when I ran hot water to flush, the water once again did not drain. Indeed, some water backed up into the tub in the other bathroom and that room’s toilet didn’t properly clear when flushed. A second application of Drano let the water go down again and this time no water left standing. Still, I think I want to snake the line after the stores open so I can get one.

The NY Times takes a look at the New Jersey town where I grew up: On Stagecoach Route, a Commuter Haven. Interesting, hasn’t changed as much as I would have guessed–still has six Jewish temples, for instance–but the home prices continue to rise. I guess kids look at the world differently but as a teen I never really thought I’d live anywhere else after college yet of the four homes I’ve owned, none was in Livingston.

Chico Bangs is Tony Hightower and also a person who makes interesting comments to SportsFilter. If you like Marshall Crenshaw-ish lyrics over acoustic Dylan-ish nearly folk music, check out his Area 52 MP3s. Sorry if my references are out of date for what you’re doing Tony, they’re the the best I got.

Cringely’s latest is definitely of interest to the Sun and ex-Sun community. One point he doesn’t make, though I suppose implies, takes the form of a question: Can you name the last innovation at Sun that has made the company money? I mean even pure revenue, not just gross margin or EBITDA. If you say N1 I will say that it’s (a) a marketecture and (b) not actually shipping (here is the Sun products page, tell me which of the listed items is N1).

Watched both of the Champions League quarterfinals first leg matches–Monaco over Chelsea yesterday via TiVo and today’s scoreless draw between Porto and Deportivo–and while enjoyable, especially Monaco’s effort, both felt a bit off. What was very surprising to me was that yesterday the commentators were, accurately IMO, pointing out that Chelsea were not playing the kind of overly rough football for which English sides are often criticized but in today’s match both teams played exactly that kind of ruffian style, bad tackling and bad sportsmanship, and yet neither of the presenters made any point of it. Monaco came off as superb when they scored the last two goals while a man down and totally frustrated Chelsea (playing with an added attacker after Zikos’ red card) but the two Iberian sides today were barely able to make one scoring attempt each the whole 90 minutes.

Is this part of Microsoft’s attempt to get out from under with the EU?

I Googled this, I searched the MS Support pages and newsgroups, I asked the other people here at work who use FrontPage and yet still have no answer. So here is the question: how do I create a page which lists the files in a directory on the server? The name of each file should be a hyperlink to open it. In PHP this would be a trivial exercise for me but of course we don’t have PHP installed on this Windows server. Crap.

I watched 2 Fast 2 Furious the other day but it just wasn’t worth writing about, although the actress who played Suki…