BillSaysThis

Yesterday’s bit of doggerel, just to give a spot of explanation, was an exercise in combining found bits of dialog, remembered lyrics and out of context sentence fragments from news articles. Hopefully at least one of you found it to have some emotional resonance.

Though the rumor mill has been back and forth on whether or not director McG (Charlie’s Angels) is actually going ahead with a new Superman film, Superhero Hype! is now reporting that the film is on and that Beyonce Knowles is likely to be cast as Lois Lane, with the possibility of Johnny Depp as uber-villain Lex Luthor. Knowles herself confirmed that she’s going after the role in a recent TV interview but I think Depp’s name is just being used to help the project along–he seems to be “up” for a role in nearly every big name movie that’s potentially being made over the next few years thanks to his recent successes.

The Science Fiction Writers Association’s 2003 Preliminary Nebula ballot is now up [via /.] What does this mean for you? It means that most of the non-novel fiction nominees are now posted to the web for your reading, and linked from this one page for your convenience. Enjoy!

BBC America is now showing a classic (1995-96) Rowan Atkinson series called The Thin Blue Line, about an extremely incompetent police squad. It was written by Ben Elton, who also did Atkinson’s various Black Adders and Mr. Bean. Just thought you’d like to know.

Come back to me!

I’m proud of my big fat ass

It was a great pleasure to be naked in [the] film

You knew the broadcast would be watched by millions

of families with children–now you owe me billions.

Valentine’s Day is coming up, and each of us is thinking

of romance–and you could give me a jolly good rogering–

No more trolling the Internet for juicy tales please,

We’re talking about young kids, who don’t even really know

The pressure yet.

I listen to voices, snap my fingers and I love the way music

Makes me feel–I do, I truly do–the message is, get up and dance!

Just do it! My head is just something I keep my hat on.

Don’t ask for my family’s darkest secret, how my older

Brother threatened to kill him, beat him to a pulp, stomp!

That fool tried to get between him and his ex-wife. No

Denying, as it was all caught on camera and then

He disappeared down Flamingo Lane.

Yobbos and hooligans, pardon me for living, but there was a time

A time when buying soap was enough, and now there’s a hold up.

I thought he was a student, he was taking heroin and grabbing

Condoms–he should not have been out in the street–and there

He was, shouting, “I’m proud of my big fat ass” to all and anon.

Another TiVo Suggestion, seemed cute and for some reason more appealing than other available shows. Plus Evan Rachel Wood has gotten much good press for thirteen and I thought I see what this one held. 2001’s Little Secrets is, I have to say, a great movie for young girls: it’s smart, not smarmy, fun and has a couple of cute boys; Wood and her friends learn a valuable lesson in the end, of course, and in a fair way. But unless you’re a parent watching with your under-14 daughter, it really isn’t that much fun to sit through.

no rating

Yes! I’m in emphatic agreement with Melanie and have been since ’72.

I was hoping, really hoping, that I would find something positive to write next in this blog, on any topic. Maybe funny, perhaps uplifting, even pleasantly pornographic. Instead, I am left with the following letter to the editor to the Mercury News:

Alma Taylor wrote in today’s letters section that “Putting weapons of mass destruction aside, is there anyone naive enough to think that, if Saddam Hussein had not been removed from power, Libya and Iran would have come forward and revealed their weapons of mass destruction programs?”

Her statement, however, is a typical straw man argument that completely misses the key problem many Americans now have with the Bush Administration. My problem, echoed by many others with whom I’ve spoken, is that President Bush, cabinet members and others in positions of leadership in our nation lied to us. On many occasions one of them stood up in front of an audience and claimed that we needed to go to war in Iraq, NOW, because Hussein had significant quantities of weapons of mass destruction.

If we cannot trust our President, Vice President, Secretaries of State and Defense, and so on down the list to tell us the truth in such a significant situation, when over 500 Americans and thousands of Iraqis have died as part of this war, how can we trust them to tell the truth on any subject?

Maddox hits his target: Bill O’Reilly is a big blubbering vagina

I wish I could laugh but Garret, it’s all about more for the haves and less for the have-nots these days. Doesn’t matter what aspect of government or business considered, that’s the low down truth and you have five different posts today alone that show it.

Ooh look, I am now a moderator in the Slimbrowser Forum! I feel so special.

Ed Felten makes an interesting point in Googlocracy, that people who complain about things like googlebombs affecting PageRank and such are whining over nothing, but I think Felten misses a big piece with the following:

The web authors have a certain number of Google-votes, and they are casting those votes as they think best. Who are we to complain? They may be foolish to spend their votes that way, but they are entitled to do so.

Web authors, as a practical matter, really don’t have a “certain,” or limited, number of links but are essentially unlimited in the sense that almost any of us have the time to add one or two more links on any given day. Which means millions of links, in the aggregate, and nothing in the software or publishing process really limits this. So adding a link for a googlebombing or other group purposes can not be considered foolish in the sense Felten intends, as the expenditure of a scarce resource.

Later: Joe sent an email spanking me for misspelling the professor’s last name (Felten, as I’ve corrected this post to read, rather than my original Felton). Of course, this more or less ruins the pun in the title leaving me all a-tizzy. What to do, what to do…

Michael Watkins wrote a detailed essay on the recent event of his not being granted tenure at Harvard Business School, On Not Getting Tenure/Academic Parasitism at HBS, which went into far more detail and discussion of what he sees as negative developments at the venerable institution than you’d expect. But I think this is an example of how blogging is changing, for some people, just what is acceptable to say in public versus the kind of discretion most of us expected 10 or 20 years ago. Then Watkins probably would have had a few beers with pals and vented for an evening; now he’s published something that, due to various linkage, will probably be read by several or many thousands.

Scoble’s blog vacation is leaving a 24 minute hole in my daily reading time. The bastard!

The view of the snowy backyard outside my folks’ home a couple of weekends ago when TS1 and I visited. And a bonus, a lovely crying face, hammered in copper, that my parents bought on a trip to Greece years ago.

David Gelernter’s company Mirror Worlds Technologies is applying his LifeStreams model to an RSS aggregator, interesting [via Larkfarm]

No scoring in the first or third quarters, lots in the second and fourth. I have no explanation except perhaps in the third the players were still stunned by the halftime entertainment; I’m not just talking about the pasty on Janet’s breast but the overall who cares of the whole show. For those of you expecting something creative with the ads, sorry, there weren’t really any ads worth watching, much less writing about. Amusing in-game SportsFilter thread though.

Top five reasons why High Fidelity is one of my all time favorite movies:

1. A romantic comedy with intelligence and wit, a plot that is in constant motion, well-contrasted characters who find organic growth. More laughs and smiles per square meter of film stock than you can shake a stick at.
2. John Cusack is one of the great American actors whether he gets the credit for it or not. High Fidelity uses his ability for believability and physical humor and contrasts him so well with Jack Black (going over the top) and Todd Louiso (just the opposite, barely animated).
3. Lots and lots of great music, much of which is woven directly into the plot and not just used as background. And the artists are all over the place: Springsteen, Aretha, Bow Wow Wow, Belle & Sebastian, Liz Phair, Ann Peebles, Illinois Jacquet, Stiff Little Fingers and more.
4. You can watch it many times and see some new bit or some scene in a new light each time. Plus it’s difficult to get tired of seeing Catherine Zeta-Jones pull off her top.
5. Bruce Springsteen makes a cameo, sitting back playing his Telecaster and giving Rob sage advice

More top fives about the movie from Ben Guaraldi.

absolutely recommended

Dear William Lazar,

Walgreens and Medco Health Solutions have reviewed pharmacy transactions related to your health benefits plan’s prescription coverage from mid-1999 to early 2001. The review identified certain co-payments paid by you that could have been lower.

Therefore, consistent with Medco’s and Walgreen’s commitment to customer satisfaction, please accept the enclosed check to fully reimburse you for the difference.

Sincerely,

Walgreens

The enclosed check was for 50 cents. W00t, I’m rich again.