BillSaysThis

Coming this March to SciFi: Tripping the Rift

Sadly, I expect a lot more of these type of attacks to occur and am surprised there haven’t been more sooner.

The Reds have been in quite a bit of turmoil lately, not only losing half the starters to injury, but also major fan, press and shareholder agony for manager Gerard Houllier. There are almost as many calls for his scalp as for that of Claudio Ranieri, the manager of the Chelski Millionaires. Which made for a fine run-up to today’s visit to Stamford Bridge by Liverpool for both squad’s first EPL match of the year.

If the first two things, on top of this, that I told you were: the Reds hadn’t won at Chelsea’s grounds since 1989 and that goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek had to leave for injury (yes, another one) and be replaced for the finish by a player who had yet to play a single minute with the first team, would you think we won or lost? I know, I know, me too but fuck if we didn’t win! Yeah, you read that right! Took three points right out from under them with a 33rd minute goal from little-used midfielder Bruno Cheyrou off a sweet cross into the box from Emile Heskey.

Have to say that the last 20-25 minutes were bad nailbiters, especially after Dudek’s groin injury in the 77th minute and was replaced by Patrice Luzi. Dudek was Houllier’s second choice as it was but Chris Kirkland is out for perhaps two months with a nasty finger bone break. If Dudek is out for any length of time, the team will have little alternative to finding a keeper in the transfer market because as of now Luzi is the only healthy GK on the roster. Though there were few shots and fewer on goal, our defense was stiffly tested as Chelsea had possession almost every second of this period but the backline was impregnable. Special props to Jimmy Traore and Sammi Hyypia.

Yay! The next three EPL matches are against teams below us in the standings, with a UEFA Cup match mixed in, and this would be an excellent time for a run of good luck since Michael Owen and Steven Finnan, then Steven Gerrard and Milan Baros are due back from the injured list.

The Washington Angry Native Americans hired their only legendary coach, Joe Gibbs, who apparently got tired of watching cars drive around and around for several hours at a clip (that is, he bought himself a NASCAR team when he ‘retired’ from football) and decided he’d rather make $5 million a year for five years (that is, the same deal the now-departed Steve Spurrier had). But he also gets to be both coach and president of football operations (that is, he gets final say on personnel, which Spurrier did not have). Washington has made the playoffs a grand total of one (1) time in the 11 years Gibbs has been away.

The Arizona Cardinals, meanwhile, brought in Dennis Green as their latest managerial saviour. Sadly, he’ll only be paid $11 million over four years, though he will have similar authority, but then again Gibbs won three Super Bowls as a head coach while Green won none in 10 years running the Minnesota Vikings. Green also flirted with the Oakland Raiders but one can hardly blame him from staying away from that hornet’s nest. While I applaud the Bidwell’s willingness to hire a minority coach, the question is whether they chose the right one; Romeo Crennel was another interviewee and (hate to be so repetitive), I’d love to see what he can do as a head coach.

They’re not just black holes any more: Gravastars

The blog for people who think blogs are dull.

Given all the (extremely justified) to do over the years local governments have gone through regarding simple things like nativity scenes, you’d hardly expect some religious type to post biblical passages at the Grand Canyon. Responding to my letter was Dawn O’Sickey, Public Affairs Specialist for the Grand Canyon National Park:

“Your e-mail inquiry regarding the sale of the book Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, in bookstores operated by the Grand Canyon Association, has been forwarded to this office for reply.

The book has been sent to the National Park Service Office of Communications, in Washington, D.C., for review in terms of the book’s appropriateness as a sales item in a National Park. Once the review has been completed and an opinion rendered, that information will be available to the public. We will keep your message on file in our office and forward a copy of that opinion to you. We are also keeping on file your comments regarding the plaques.”

Trust me that is not a satisfactory answer so I responded politely but firmly:

Thank you for your response. However, there is no explanation included of why plaques bearing Christian bible passages have been allowed in one of our finest national parks; to me, this is much worse than the books on sale. When are these plaques going to be removed? If you (personally, that is, due to your position in the department) are unable to provide an answer, please let me know how I can schedule a phone conversation with Secretary Norton on this topic.

Think I’ll get that phone call?

With the film successes of Tommy and Quadrophenia in the bank, Pete Townsend and Company capitalized with The Kids Are Alright. While the first two were ‘real’ films, with plots and everything, this one is more a collection of film clips and interview bits massaged together–if Kids came out 15 years later it would have been an MTV special or DVD release. But if you’re a Who fan, this is well worth the time to see and enjoy. Lots of classic tunage, including a great and revealing live version of Shout and shimmy and nicely done recording studio footage of then-new Who Are You, and some primo Moon looniness topping.

Recommended

According to the NY Times, former Jacksonville (and Parcells-era Giants assistant) Tom Coughlin has been hired as the new head coach of the New York Giants, replacing Jim Fassell. Coughlin, known as a very strict leader in eight seasons with the Jaguars, gets a four-year contract worth more than $11 million. Interesting, if predictable, choice and a decent way to start off the new year. The team also interviewed Romeo Crennel and Lovie Smith and I do think it’ll be a shame if all seven openings get filled without those two getting jobs.

Harsh language to use about our president and his trusted advisors, for sure, but what else can you call them when they sneak civils rights destroying provisions into barely visible legislation on the same day last month that the media and everyone else was preoccupied with the capture of Saddam Hussein? The TFH types claimed that we’d captured Hussein well in advance of that day so that everything could be prepared just so but were dismissed as raving lunatics; now, though, I start to wonder. The legislation grants the FBI unprecedented power to obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge and was originally part of the Patriot Act II–which was defeated when people realized how seriously bad it was. Sneaky fucks, all right.

I’m a sucker for cool computer shit, actually any cool techie stuff, so that probably explains some of my excitement watching this Microsoft Longhorn application demo. The presenter, one of the Longhorn evangalists not named Robert Scoble, states that the demo takes advantage of new features in the Avalon, WinFS and Indigo subsystems to produce what would be a really impressive real estate application from a new company called RE3W if it really worked as shown. The application works across company lines using secure connectivity, integrates communication (email and IM, I think), sophisticated graphics to bring an amazing level of automation to the commercial real estate purchase process. I would love to find out, however, how much of the application’s impressive functionality requires Longhorn’s capabilities and how much can be done today using, say, C++ or Java even though more coding would be necessary.

It’s a Wal*Mart World, we’re just living in it at cost-plus.

Along with the film release page updating the other day, I’ve added a little feature to the Movie Review Index so that my one or two word rating shows as the tooltip when you hover your mouse over the title. Exciting, I know. Don’t bust a gut trying to tell all your friends and neighbors. 234 entries in that database at the moment. I’ll likely add the same thing to the book review index next time I add a review.

Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data: “With this add-in you can permanently remove hidden data and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files.”

One career (or hobby/addiction) I’ve never pursued is sports gambling because, simply put, I suck at picking winners. Especially when there’s money on the line; I found that out when I was much younger and actually put about $200 where my mouth was on a few wagers. So I’m not at all surprised that in the first round I had two winners and two losers. In other words, if you’re looking for winners in the NFL playoffs don’t go by my picks. Which, after this weekend’s amusements, are:

Division Round: New England over Tennessee, Indianapolis over Kansas City, Philadelphia over Green Bay, St. Louis over Carolina. Props to John Fox for getting the Panthers this far but (ignoring the really strange season ending loss to Detroit) the Rams have really had game the last couple of months. Farve and the Packers run into a rested, tested Eagles with a lot to prove but if there’s any one of these picks I’m wavering on, it’s this one. Kansas City is backing, or rather stumbling, into the playoffs with a 3-4 record to end the season and Priest Holmes only plays offense.

Conference Round: St. Louis over Philadelphia, New England over Indianapolis. One dome team wins in the cold and on the road, one won’t get untracked.

Super Bowl: New England over St. Louis. Tom Brady is amazingly underrated as a winner and was even back in the day when he was the Michigan QB.

Remember, though, that I’m not good at this and you use this guidance at your own peril.

The Times has an article today on the low carb diet trend. While the bulk of the article is about the increasing number of restaurant chains adding low carb dishes to their menu, also mentioned is the uptick in such products on supermarket shelves. “More than 600 such products were introduced in 2003, compared with 339 in 2002 and 47 in 1999…sales of low-carb products would exceed $15 billion for 2003.” I’ve noticed the increasing product count in the stores myself, not only with some established brands (Arnolds bread, Breyers ice cream) but also more of the specialty brands like Atkins Nutritionals, CarbSense and EAS.

However, the conclusion of the article, that low carb is a fad that–especially with the death last Winter of Dr. Atkins–will burn out in the next couple of years, is just wrong. Variants like the South Beach diet are just coming online and, more importantly, major food companies are getting into the space. Those companies, with hefty R&D budgets, are the ones who will develop these foods and overcome taste and texture issues.

On a personal level, I ended the year at my lightest poundage in a decade or more; I even bought new jeans two weeks ago with 36″ waist! My brother-in-law to be and his brother are also using this eating program to get their bodies in shapes not seen in years. Low carb ain’t goin’ nowhere any time soon, trust me.

I sure wish Broog had eaten the entire reel of film, preferably the original master, before I got to the theater for this dud.

I haven’t posted much since the original mention but a good deal of progress has been made with the framework project though I still am nowhere near ready to post code. Rest assured that much time and thought has gone into it; the PHP is streamlined and tested, the CSS is primitive yet correct, new pages are simple to add, and page content is easily authored and maintained (a major goal, trust me). While programmers who’ve created more substantial systems might look at Blitzen as trivial (and they’re probably not wrong), I’m laser-focused on my client’s requirements and also quite happy with the state of things.

Two good ones, at least: iStockphoto and stock.xchng [via Mark Paschal]

This Jack Nicholson/Diane Keaton movie was good, really good; I’d say it even had a chance to be on some all-time top romantic comedy lists but missed by just a bit. Nicholson plays his public personna: the wealthy ultimate womanizing bachelor still dating under 30 beauties at 63, with the concept of commitment and relationship utterly foreign to him. Keaton plays a mid-50s-ish divorcee, a leading playwright who’s given up on finding someone to shop at her store (to paraphrase one of her lines).

Nancy Meyers has a history with romantic comedies–Father of the Bride, Baby Boom, What Women Want–so Something’s Gotta Give doesn’t come out of the blue but she’s certainly taken her game to another level since divorcing former writing/producing partner Charles Shyer prior to Women. While I’ve no reason to believe that this is autobiographical, one can easily draw a line from her circumstances, throw in demonstrable creativity and get a character in Keaton’s Erica that Meyers understands. And being a longtime Hollywood professional, she’s surely met many men like Nicholson’s Harry Sanborn!

As I said, this is almost an all-timer, which certainly makes me happy to have spent $15 for two tickets. The plotting is believable and the way we get to the (admittedly inevitable) ending has unpredictable twists, the characters feel real and developed, the dialog is funny and crisp. The main supporting roles are done well too: Keanu Reeves in his first post-Matrix role as Nicholson’s doctor and a much younger man who falls for Keaton, Amanda Peet as Keaton’s daughter and Nicholson’s original romantic interest, and Frances McDormand plays the encouraging, snarky, intelligent sister who pushes Keaton to remember that life is for the living.

So what quibbles did I find that make me say Something’s Gotta Give is almost but not quite great? There are three main reasons. First, towards the end after what is the first false ending (when Harry comes to the rehearsal of Erica’s new play), Meyers simply skips the action ahead six months and this feels artificial and out of step with the rest of the movie. Second, Peet’s character is the only one that doesn’t feel real and in the second half seems written simply to support the plot rather than organically do the job. Last, I wonder why there isn’t a single less than beautiful person in the entire movie–the closest is a somewhat chunky Jon Favreau in a cameo as Nicholson’s chief assistant–and I see this a true flaw in a movie which argues, at its core, that model-style beauty isn’t necessary for love. Even so, where a classic would rank above 95 on a scale of 100, I’d rate Something at 90±2.

Surely recommended