BillSaysThis

Another of my family members, my second cousin Kim, is getting married this Summer. Right here in Los Altos but we really aren’t that close so I’m not surprised, or disappointed, that we aren’t invited. I’m real glad for her mom and dad (Hi Martin and Wendy!) and many happy years together to Kim and Todd.

Just want to put this in for down the line. I saw Freddy Adu’s goal this afternoon, the first of his career in the 75th minute of the United/MetroStars matchup at the Meadowlands, and while the shot was fairly routine I remain impressed by his maturity, creativity and energy. Sure his team lost, 3-2, but he played well and made no obvious mistakes–I put he loss down to DC’s backup keeper, Doug Warren, and poor central defense. Plus props to the MetroStars!

SportsFilter

How to be a man: shoot five women who are supposed to be your colleagues on a peacekeeping mission.

Garret, hope you’re enjoying the wedding trip but in case you’re interested, it’s fucking pouring here this morning and TS1 is out wandering around the Mountain View shopping district.

If you take nothing else away from this movie, you will know without a doubt that Julia Stiles at 21 was gorgeous and will only get more so over the next two decades. She just has one of those faces that starts out from beautiful and winds up over the border into some uncharted territory. But enough drooling.

A Guy Thing, released in 2003, is filled with cliches, sexual innuendo and shopworn gags, telling the story of the last few days before the wedding of Paul and Karen (Jason Lee and Selma Blair) in a very modern romantic comedy. At his bachelor party, Paul gets drunk and hooks up with Becky (played by Stiles)–but not really, of course, since they’re both too drunk for anything to happen though they do spend the night together. Leading to all those tired, trite Hollywood components just mentioned.

Yet Guy Thing isn’t just another waste of celluloid. It’s funny, occasionally even witty, has characters who rise beyond stock and cast chemistry that engages. Props to director Chris Koch, who clearly is better than the material he had in Snow Day, his first feature directing assignment. And Lee is more than just a vessel for Kevin Smith.

recommended

Important factoid: Cheeze-It crackers are made in the largest ovens in the United States, perhaps the world.

Getting very late but can Sun make a comeback in the application server market? One good sign is that they finally got rid of Mark Tolliver, who was head of iPlanet during my tenure but less visible than spare change at the GOP Convention.

Here’s what I’d expect to see more of from people with ridiculous bank accounts: McGregor to Embark on Global Motorcycle Trip

I have one of those semi-coveted invitations to try out the new Google mail service but have been sitting on it for the last week. Do I really have any use, much less need, for yet another account? I have my choice of pretty much unlimited addresses at the billsaysthis.com domain, four on Hotmail (two that capture my name, with no numbers, which I figure are worth hanging on to, one that was my chat handle and one just for my eBay activity) plus one for Yahoo! that I only use for Yahoo! activity. People have written both positive and negative about the service and a free gigabyte of storage sounds nice… but really, it’s just one more time sink and I can’t figure out the purpose. Cool as it might be, Google seems to be a little late to the game for this heavy email user.

Later: What the heck, I decided that I might as well take the freebie, so you can write me at b<mylastname><at>gmail.com.

Cool: With Tiny Brain Implants, Just Thinking May Make It So. Only for seriously injured now but, assuming privacy and security issues can be handled (and those are HUGE issues), such tech would be amazing.

The best, non-racist, balanced definition of a Jew, or a Jewish person, can be found at the Wikipedia and nowhere else. Please spread this comment and help stamp out hate speech on the Net. The reason for this campaign is to counter attack a certain anti-semitic website which has made its way to the top of the Google listing when the word “Jew” is put in as a search term.

The Lazars took home a young new family member yesterday. Meet Zorro the Beta:

 

Note: Neither Viv nor Zorro are responsible for my abysmal photographics skills.

One of my pals from NetDynamics uncovered the true reason Microsoft paid Sun $2 billion the other week!

I suppose that’s putting the mildest spin I can on the last few days. Liverpool lost twice, to Arsenal and Charlton, and the Quakes could do no better than a scoreless draw. Houllier has got to be a goner if the Reds slip from the fourth position (and last qualifying spot for the 2004-05 Champions League) and I’m really wondering what other changes will be seen over the Summer at Anfield. Reports are that French striker Cisse is a sure thing to come on board, probably pushing Heskey into a transfer, but we have to have something new in central defense next season as neither Henchoz nor Biscan seem to have an answer. Overall Liverpool seems to be about the worst fourth place team in the (short) history of the EPL.

Renny Harlin and Shane Black were clearly going for an over the top, cartoon-level action flick in this 1996 outing. Consider just three bits:

• “Life is pain, get used to it,” Geena Davis tells her daughter after an ice skating accident. Later we find that the eight year old broke her wrist
• “Continue dying. Out,” Craig Bierko, the chief baddie, said to a henchman who was radioing for help.
• Blood trickling artfully down out of her nose, Davis urges the daughter to run away from the climactic bomb. But the daughter can’t bear to leave her dying mom and tells her “Life is pain, get used to it.” Of course the next shot is Davis getting up off the ground.

But The Long Kiss Goodnight is good cartoon, the way the first two Die Hards (Harlin directed the second) and Black’s Last Action Hero were. Maybe I’m just reacting to my longstanding attraction to Davis, who is both Amazonian and a red head, but I don’t think so. Because there are also lots of tight situations barely escaped and big explosions too.

recommended

Barely 20 years after the events depicted, director Alan Parker made a very courageous movie about the murder of civil rights workers in the Old South. The specific acts are fictionalized but there were so many sad, terrible real events that the authenticity is no problem. The fight by the powerful whites to keep their black neighbors down was often violent and always tragic and that is what Parker brings to life.

Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman star in Mississippi Burning as FBI agents sent in to investigate the disappearance of those three workers who were trying to set up a voter registration facility in some dinky dusty town. Dafoe, running the investigation is a young agent who is sure of his procedures while Hackman is a veteran who’d been the sherriff of a distant Mississippi county as a younger man; predictably, by the end, the two come to an understanding and Dafoe is not so sure of himself.

But Parker is an excellent director and while there are few surprises he has no problem bringing out powerful emotions and a quickening tempo that keep a viewer involved. Other actors who help him achieve this quality are Brad Dourif as an evil deputy, Frances McDormand as Dourif’s wife (who, catching Hackman’s eye, is the closest thing we get to a romantic subplot), Darius McCrary as a black teen who understands the reason for the fight and Pruitt Taylor Vince as a white coward (named Cowans).

The film won the 1989 Oscar for Best Cinematography (by Peter Biziou) and was nominated for six more: Best Picture, Hackman and McDormand for acting, Parker for directing and Best Film Editing and Best Sound. Can’t complain about losing Best Picture, Director and Actor to Rain Man (Barry Levinson for directing and Dustin Hoffman for acting).

definitely recommended

Quakes did better than last week although 0-0 leaves a taste like ashes in my mouth. ESPN missed the first half hour showing a women’s tennis match that ran long and then Landon just could not get past the defense–two of the times he did a Chicago defender pulled him down anyway without drawing a foul call of any sort from the joke of a referee. Next in the sequence would seem to be a win, one can hope it will play out that way next Saturday against the Revolution.

If you can read The year to fear for Taiwan: 2006 and can tell me afterwards your fear meter didn’t move up a notch, you are lying. All these assholes with guns and bombs are really stupid, immature and a danger to us. And I mean everyone from the guy who owns a .22 for the range to the terrorist suicide bombers all the way on up to those big ‘nucular’ toys in Washington, Beijing and Moscow. I see all these weapons as just sad hangovers from people who can’t get their heads around the idea of pleasure and happiness.

Have to start keeping track of Dann Sheridan’s efforts as he’s the only storage blogger I’m aware of so far.

Nasty but at least you can buy the t-shirt!