BillSaysThis

Happy as I was to see him and the gang at the San Jose Arena last August, I am in no way happy that the 2003 portion of his tour has not arrived, and apparently will not arrive, in the Bay Area. I mean, if he can play Fenway, Comisky, Comerica, and Miller (all baseball parks), how can he skip what I’m told is the most beautiful of them all, Pac Bell Park?

This bit of crankiness was inspired by reports of last night’s kickoff concert at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. An awesome concert, of course, but also: “No human being has sold more tickets to more concerts in a series, making it one of the biggest stories in open-air entertainment since the Christians and the lions.” 10 concerts in the stand, all sold out, 55,000 tickets per show (at a more than reasonable for these days $55 and $75 per), total gross of over $38 million.

And I wasn’t there! You might question the quality of sound at a huge open air stadium but I’ve seen him there before, on the Born in the USA tour and it was just fine by me. After all, sonic quality in your average sports arena is somewhere in the range of tepid lemonade and a dogs playing poker signed lithograph. I do have anice consolation prize though: my friend Annie from Budapest traveled up to Vienna for the band’s concert there last month and she sent me a t-shirt. Which I now treasure. If you can hear me, Bruce, please make Northern California one of the rumoured five dates still to be named on the tour!

A football match raged onscreen,

the home team’s supporters chanting loudly

as their midfielders passed the ball from side to side,

probing the half line for an opening into space.

You could hear 44,000 voices lifted together:

“When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high”

As the patched ball rolled on.

On the field of Kenny, Bill, Ian, and Rowdy

Now run Michael, Sammi, Danny, and Stephen

The glory of the past holds but a candle

To the brilliant future coming to Anfield

So watch proudly as the ball arcs high,

Straight into the box and our man runs

Straight onto it, one touch, one defender to beat

Straight off and through the keeper’s legs.

For the Reds always stand proud

Gunning for more silverware

Devils stand back in awe

All the other teams blue with envy.

The NY Times reported today (Why We Die, Why We Live) on a new theory from Dr. Ronald Lee, a demographer at the University of California at Berkeley, which was published in today’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Note up front that this is more of a theorectical framework, not an analysis of genetic data, and there are no immediate practical uses of his work.

Still this seems very interesting. In the classic theory that has prevailed up to now, age (lifespan, that is) was seen as very dependent on the reproductive cycle of a species but this had several wholes big enough to drive a truck through. Key among them was why childhood mortality tends to occur significantly more in the first couple of years of life and is not spread evenly throughout. Lee’s insight depends on economics to show that mutations that cause later in childhood death waste the huge investment made in raising the child and therefore are quickly selected against via evolutionary pressures.

I was invited to a taste test this afternoon at a market research firm’s office in Redwood City (Tragon Research, if you want to sign up as a tester). I wasn’t invited because I’m an Atkins blogger, but because I signed up to participate in their testing and I qualified for this research by answering four questions on the phone. The idea was to earn some extra cash for a bit of my time while still job hunting.

The test was not bad, took less than 30 minutes from walking to walking out. Very simple, too: I had to rate either two or four different flavors of sugar-free vanilla ice cream, first on about half dozen factors such as vanilla taste, color, sweetness, aftertaste, would I purchase it, and overall. I’m not sure how many flavors altogether because first I was given a small scoop of ice cream, filled the form out, and then repeated this. Then I was given, at one time, two separate bowls each with a scoop of vanilla, asked to taste each and then simply select which I preferred.

So the second set could have been the same flavors as the first but the flavors all tasted very similar. The ice cream was very good, no aftertaste, not too sweet, which is a problem with a number of low carb foods I’ve tried (such as the CarbLite chocolate bars). I wonder if someone else is planning to enter the low carb ice cream market. I hope it was low carb, otherwise I will be unhappy tomorrow when I weigh in! LOL, got paid though, got my $25 check!

Last year I saw a pre-movie slide ad at Century 16 here in Mountain View placed by an individual on behalf of his consulting business. I contacted him to see what the results where but apparently mine was the only communication he got for his $300. Driving up 101 to San Mateo yesterday (where we saw League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at the very nice new Century 12 Downtown), I saw a billboard for a service that promised to help increase one’s skill with photography.

PhotoTrainer.com was the site and it turns out to be a personal or small group instructional service offered by one man, Tom Upton, “a veteran professional Photographer and Photoillustrator located in Menlo Park.” Mr. Upton charges $100 per hour, bascially, for his tutorial services. I wish him only the best but wonder how much that billboard cost him and how he can possibly get enough business from it to justify the expenditure. Or is there some fact I’m missing, some connection perhaps, that means he’s not paying what you or I would for this advertising. Interesting either way.

On my personal efforts, there is nothing to report–not a single contact regarding the purchase of my guitar and amp nor my fliers advertising blogging classes. So much for my credentials for asking this question…

From the Wayback Machine (Turner Classic Movies, actually) we had 1942’s This Gun for Hire queued up on TiVo. This film noir thriller is most notable for giving Alan Ladd his big break after a decade of bit parts and hanging around. He matched with Veronica Lake and their chemistry was easily noticed, leading to several further teamings though the ’40s in such hits as The Blue Dahlia.

The other memorable character in Gun was main bad guy Willard Gates (though no one called him Bill), played by Laird Cregar. Cregar was a large man (I was strongly reminded of David Schramm who played Roy on the TV show Wings) and this film was more or less than midpoint of his short career as he died three years later when his body couldn’t take an intensive diet; here he gives a performance that’s a sinister combination of creepy and enticing, nearly trapping both Ladd and Lake in his web.

In the end, of course, all the bad guys die and the good guys kiss. Okay, the good guys are Lake and her fiancee/police detective who’s investigating the case (a very young Robert Preston) but this was 1942 Hollywood and moral ambiguity was considered very bad for the box office. Preston wasn’t really there during the filming, if you know what I mean, looked like he was getting fed his lines from someone standing just offstage. Tully Marshall had a nice supporting role as an ultra-cranky war criminal corporate chietain, which resonated nicely with recent real life events.

While I enjoyed the movie, I didn’t care much for whatever director Frank Tuttle contributed–give credit to Graham Greene, who wrote the novel on which the movie is based–but to be fair Tuttle’s bread and butter were apparently musical comedies and the producers must have thought that he was a good choice since Lake had to sing two or three numbers to be convincing as a nightclub singer/magician.

Moderately recommended

Upfront I’ll admit that I like the branch of science fiction known as alternative history. So even though I haven’t read Alan Moore’s graphic novels, I was still looking forward to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And I wasn’t disappointed–this movie was a blast.

The alternative here is that quite a few fictional heroes are real people. Except for the ones who are vampires, although there’s only one in the movie and she’s a longtime hottie, Peta Wilson. There’s Sean Connery leading the way as a very old yet still spry Alan Quartermain, Jason Flemyng as Dorian Gray (his famous portrait not only prevent shim from aging, it prevents him from being damaged or killed as well, except…), Captain Nemo, Jeckyll/Hyde, and the Invisible Man. Plus the bad guy is from one of the all time great detective series–there seems to be some effort to keep his identity underwraps as even IMDB does not properly credit him, so I won’t spoil that revelation here.

Connery is essentially the same age as my Dad (who, have no doubt, I love very much) and even though I realize that judicious editing, stunt doubles and other bits of movie magic were employed, he still kicks butt! LOL. I mean, Connery is the League member who in the end must face off with the prime villain in manual combat at the end and he gets the job done. We saw the movie with Lord B (who did not enjoy it, silly man) and he pointed out that Jeckyll/Hyde essentially serves as a primordial Hulk without the green (or the ability to leap three miles in a single bound, though that wouldn’t have been useful here anyway).

I like the work director Stephen Norrington has done, good pacing, good framing, just dark enough (though at times the action moved so quickly that the darkness got a bit in the way). James Robinson wrote a nice adaptation and compared too many bloated action films (why is The Hulk well over two hours long?), this one ends well before your ass is in pain. Watch out for a sequel, if the box office take is strong enough, as the ending certainly left that as the clear expectation.

Recommended

Daniel Dennett lays out the 411. ‘Nuff said.

See the whole megillah.

Today was a bit of a milestone here at the BillSaysThis offices when, after nearly two years of monitoring, our visitor counter flipped over into the sixth digit. The management refused to issue an official statement although peeping toms in the parking lot remarked that they heard some distinctive “W00T W00T” shouting when the momentous event occured. Thanks to Google for all the traffic, without that massive server farm and its referrals, we don’t know where we’d be. Mom said, “Congratulations. So when will you hit a million?” Thanks Mom.

Just wow! Now Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner can really reach back for a new routine.

Writing an OpEd piece for USA Today, Sen. Santorum continues with the foot up his a-hole routine by claiming that marriage other than that between a man and a woman is wrong: “[I]t’s just common sense that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.” (Santorum’s original claim to fame was briefly mentioned here before.) However, it’s Santorum who’s wrong, trying to make an argument based on his religious beliefs without bringing religion explicitly in the argument.

As if that matters, that people can’t see right through his poorly formulated logic. The Pennsylvania Republican marshals his arguments completely on why society recognizes and gives special legal meaning to marriages, and none of those arguments seem particularly farfetched, but he leaves one weak assertion–a Jenga piece left hanging too far out–at the base of his rhetoric and once that piece is pulled out, the whole pile crumbles. Just how is it “common sense that marriage is the union of a man and a woman”?

True, for as long as there’s been recorded history marriage has been between a man and a woman. Except for certain groups, such as the Mormons, that practiced polygamy; I expect that if I searched enough I’d find examples of societies that practiced group marriage or multiple husband/single wife systems as well. Just because it’s been that way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. Otherwise we’d still have slavery and shtetls, not to mention laws against miscegenation.

Santorum further writes that “There is an ocean of empirical data showing that the union between a man and a woman has unique benefits for children and society.” He contrasts this to single parent families. But since there has never been single gender marriage, there are no studies with which to contrast the cited statistics. Not to mention that, while 1man/1woman marriage may not be the same, as regards the positives of raising a child, as same gender marriage, but neither is the latter the same as single parent and so his main argument fails as a false analogy.

The essay ends by railing against a decision made by “a non-elected group of justices,” which he hopes will be overturned by “elected leaders.” Is the Senator suggesting that the Supreme Court is not a vital branch of our federal government? I doubt that and instead suggest he is using situational rhetoric to further roil the emotions of his supporters. One hopes that he finds himself facing serious competition in his re-election campaign in 2006 and that the people of Pennsylvania understand how poorly he represents their interests. Asshat!

[Note: I submitted a slighlty edited form of this as a letter to the editor, aren’t you all surprised?]

Should Flangy go with Grumpus or So-and-So, or simplify the whole matter by shaving it all off?

Lots of grassroots activity on this new protocol/API/religion. Please note that the affectionate nickname I’m using, (n)Echo, is used simply because the members have yet to come up with the replacement name for Echo and I’m respecting the existing project of that name.

Tristan Louis, a fellow PHP acolyte, emailed to let me know about his implementation of an RSS->(n)Echo converter. Seems like a useful tool at this point, when few blogging engines provide the new format feed natively, and his site allows you to create the conversion as a service or, if one asks nicely, he’ll send you some code.

A new draft of the API spec has been posted.

Mark, one of the key members of the cabal, has been writing up and linking commentary, so go review his last week or two’s worth of posts.

Aaron Schwartz, the teen techno-politician, has created a (n)Echo news blog.

Personally, I’m waiting for Luke to add support in SharpReader before I worry about getting or sending feeds since every currently-available feed also publishes in RSS.

My big hope is that with this system in place and supported by Blogger, I’ll be able to get some really nice, not necessarily browser-based authoring tools for my blog. Which, due to slow movement by the home team, don’t exist just now.

Rogers is puzzled over Adam Curry’s reaction to (n)Echo but my response is quite different: HA HA HA you silly big hair man!

Unlike archrival network HBO, Showtime just doesn’t seem to have the executive talent necessary to make good series. Other than Jeremiah, I can’t really think of one series they’ve put on that has been worth watching every week. Still, I’m a sucker for punishment and so I tuned into their latest offering, Dead Like Me.

This show is populated by five regulars, people who’ve died but not yet passed on to the next plane of existence. Such people are given no choice but to work as Grim Reapers, this group based in Seattle, responsible for separating our souls from our bodies just at the time of death. The reapers do their job by touching a person. If they don’t perform their assigned tasks, which they get via a (so far) mysterious list dropped under the leader’s door each morning, the ‘client’ suffers a terrible consequence. After sufficient service, the reapers are allowed to ascend, though in their undead existence no knowledge of that place is permitted.

The show’s lead is Georgia ‘George’ Lass (Ellen Muth), an 18 year old girl who’s killed by a toilet fallen off a space shuttle. Her boss is Rube, no last name, is played by Mandy Patinkin and in the first three episodes we’ve not been given a clue about who he is. Rebecca Gayeheart, Jasmine Guy, and Callum Blue play the other undead, while George’s parents and younger sister show up each episode so far still dealing with her departure.

Unfortunately, I just don’t care about George and her struggle to accept the new rules of existence she’s been given. Patinkin is a really good actor, which is more than I can say for the rest of this crew, but he’s not being given anything to work with. And the series’ basic concept is just beyond my ability to suspend my disbelief. We have this whole complex structure of existence and some type of afterlife but the transition can’t be made without the soothing touch of a Reaper?

There’s more that’s wrong with Dead Like Me but it’s just not worth writing up. Give it a skip.

As for that one good show, Jeremiah was renewed for a second season but even though more than half a year has passed since the announcement, no air date has yet been set. Way to go, Showtime execs, way to keep what little audience you have in the loop. I mean, it’s been more than a year since the last episode has aired and you haven’t even unspooled a preparatory repeat run.

Not recommended

“No blood for RSS!” So sayeth the Whumpmeister. Lots of blah blah blah. Waiting for a resolution.

This one had been on the To See list for weeks now and we were glad to have an opportunity this afternoon to see it. Bend It Like Beckham is an English film about Jesminder, the daughter of a Sikh family who idolizes David Beckham and is actually a decent footballer herself and her fight to gain acceptance of her desires by her parents.

A major subplot is the impending marriage of Jesminder’s sister and this, along with the heavily Indian cast, made me compare Bend to Monsoon Wedding, which I didn’t care for at all. Fortunately, this film is much better and the actors’ accents much more easily understood.

Parminder Nagra plays Jesminder and easily carries the weight of the film, well supported by Keira Knightley as the girl who recruits her to the soccer team and becomes, briefly, a romantic rival. Interestingly, though they both play the equivalent of high school seniors, Nagra was 26 at the time of filming and Knightley only 18. Nagra will next be gracing America with her presence in the TV series ER when the new season opens while Knightley will be all over the multiplexes this week as Orlando Bloom’s love interest in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Since I’d never heard of writer/director Gurinder Chadha before, I chalked up a bunch of poor transitions and editing choices to this being a first effort, but looking him up on IMDB showed this isn’t the case. Oh well. Seems to have done a better job on the script than direction but still adequate, including the climactic action cutting between a soccer match and an extremely energetic dance at the sister’s wedding.

Coming of age tales are quite common in movies and novels but can still be done well, as this film demonstrates. On the other hand, Hollywood turns out dreck like next week’s How to Deal and last year’s Scooby-Doo. Good to know that gems in a class with, say, American Graffitti are still being made.

Highly recommended