BillSaysThis

Everyone makes fun of postmodernism. And by everybody I mean semi-educated folks like myself who don’t do it for a living. But trying to get your head around it if you haven’t studied it extensively is absolutely mindbending. If you don’t believe me, check out this really good MeFi post and discussion: Postmodern Infotainment: I Rrivolously Link – You Decide. Be sure and read the comments, including Rusty’s informed defense, and don’t miss the whack Mr. T parody link.

Three days from now, an event for which I’ve been waiting over three and a half years will finally happen: Vaxgen will announce the results of the Phase III clinical trials for the AIDSVAX vaccine Monday morning. Before the market opens, at 6:00 a.m., and you can listen in (instructions in the linked page).

I had a feeling that the announcement would be sooner rather than later (Vaxgen announced late last year that this news would be forthcoming in this quarter), and made a last minute bet that the results will be positive. Already holding 1600 shares of stock, I added 16 contracts for March $15 call options! Kind of like pressing your bet at the craps table, but if the vaccine works my payoff will be turbocharged and, if not, well I was already betting plenty and this won’t make too much of a difference to the downside.

Most important, the results should be good so that we can start taking proactive steps to fight this disease that’s killing so many people all over the world. Kudos to Drs. Donald Francis, Lance Gordon, Philip Berman, and the rest of the team for over seven years of hard work.

Is not such a bad thing when your father is James Taylor and your mother is Carly Simon. This is the good fortune of Ben Taylor, whose first album is being released on Tuesday. And Ben is not at all one of those pissy kids upset by comparison to Dad and instead is quite pleased by the suggestion. I heard his first single on the radio yesterday, a song called Let It Grow, and thought to myself, Gee that sounds a lot like James Taylor, but not quite. Then the DJ came on and named the singer and I said (to myself), Self, you are one smart dude.

True, most awards shows are simply painful to watch, and that includes the Grammies most years. Sunday night’s event holds the prospect of standing above that threshold, though. Already anticipated is the performance of Springsteen and the E St. Band, probably Waiting on a Sunny Day, and the tribute to Joe Strummer. Now, and I’m not saying this is news, only new to me, is that Simon & Garfunkle will be performing together. Only one song, probably Bridge Over Troubled Water (oh yes, please!!!), but the long-separated duo are also negotiating to reunite for a Summer tour.

Discover the beauty of snow in the Winter time

Look out the window even though the shades are drawn

100 flakes falling on the tip of your tongue

100 flakes covering your eyes from the light.

And watch a beautiful woman ride down the path

Running behind that tree where you carved a heart

Proclaiming to the world at large just how large

The love within your heart once was.

She was the perfect woman, her parents were rich

But time passes by, complain to no avail,

They turn into this and you get a couple of these

Your arms cannot grow wide enough.

No, you cannot pay enough to keep that irresistible

Urge ablaze, cry though you might and curse though you will

Her hair will gray, and your waist will sag,

Nobody can have magic to change these ways.

Fear not that your love will dim under the weight

Of all the winter flakes that fall for all the Winters

No, the screaming passion will re-emerge in time

With a glow that lasts for as many years as you.

niffleblort. snargwhompler. spittlewhiskey. bloganoia. just doing garret a favor 😉

Most of the commentary so far is filled with sturm und drang about how Google either will elevate Blogger (users) unfairly compared to other weblogging tools or else didn’t need to buy Blogger to achieve whatever unstated goals they have. Big whoop. I did point out on Anil Dash’s G+B entry comments that one possible value not many folks were seeing yet was a combination of Blogger and the Google Search Appliance as a real Intranet-focused killer app. (Thanks to my man Dan for pointing out my scoop on BlogRoots!)

But the best comment comes from Jason Kottke in You put Blogger in my Google! You put Google in my Blogger! And he made me laugh.

Who knows what the truth is, and, frankly, who cares? I sure don’t but here’s a few WAGs:

1. Both the final two women (Sarah and Zora) are lesbians and when they find out he doesn’t have the 50 large, they turn to each other for comfort and love.
2. Evan explains that, in a burst of honesty following the $50M revelation, one of his previous jobs was as male prostitute.
3. The losing female proclaims the true object of her affection is the Australian butler–he’s cute and has that accent!

Thankfully I have two TVs and will not be subjected to this mishigas!

Declan McCullagh, writing for C|Net News, has a couple of important columns recently: Ashcroft’s worrisome spy plans and Closer to a national ID plan?. The former is an overview of “a whopping 120-page proposal [from the Attorney General] that represents the boldest attack yet on our electronic privacy” while the latter alerts us to the plans of a company called EagleCheck which wants to create, in effect, a national identity system based on, and linking, existing databases.

And others are picking up on the trend as well (of course): Privacy International is holding a Stupid Security Competition. Send in your nominations.

These are bad things, people, if you want to keep any semblance of a private life. Of course, if you’re not doing anything wrong (some would argue), why worry about who knows this stuff? And if you are doing anything wrong, shame on you! Just another move by the allegedly freedom-loving people running our country these days. Who seem to be glad to give you any freedom you want as long as they can watch.

You know The Recruit was on my list. Pacino, spies, even Colin Farrell. Took a few weeks to make time for it but finally got to a matinee this afternoon. Although the experience at the AMC Mercado 20 in Santa Clara was not good, as their idea of a bargain is $7.50 and they show ads before the movie (four of them, and very loudly) versus $6.00 with no ads at the Century 16 in Mountain View. Century just needs to improve their scheduling a bit, that’s all.

Anyway, the movie. Pacino is always great and he gives a good performance here. Not as over the top (Hoo Haa!) loopy as in Any Given Sunday or The Devil’s Advocate. Farrell is turning out to be quite the actor himself and I will be interested to see if, in 20 years, he is another Pacino or another Ford. Or the next Liam Neeson for that matter, since he’s Irish. Speaking of Irish, the hottie in this film is Bridget Moynahan and she’s competent but mostly just another attractive Hollywood space filler as best I can tell. She might be a terrific actress, don’t get me wrong, but the parts she’s taken until now won’t really let you know if that’s true.

What’s good about The Recruit is the twisty, surprising plot and the crisp action. Pacino, especially, keeps warning the other characters (and the audience) that nothing is as it seems, everything is a lie, and only believe the little voice inside your head. Perhaps a little too much of the 115 minutes is spent establishing Farrell’s character at school and in training at “The Farm” and I think this fault lays at the foot of Aussie directing vet Roger Donaldson (who did one of my long ago favorites, Smash Palace, before moving to Hollywood).

To a certain degree, the main action, the final 30-40% of the film, plays more like a really well made TV series episode, but really well made. If HBO did a dramatic spy series… that’s not a bad idea, actually, for someone in HBO’s original programming department to pursue, a series based around Farrell’s James Clayton. Anyway, overall I might compare the movie to Will Smith’s Enemy of the State for pacing and the idea of a man thrust into a powerful spy situation without much expertise.

Recommended

From 2001: Le Fabuleux destin d’Amelie Poulain, or as it was released in America, Amelie. I would write a review but Statto pretty much wrote exactly what I would have. So why bother?

Definitely recommended

In the run up to the Feb. 28 TV special, the Springsteen camp has released a new video of Waiting on a Sunny Day. Not really a video, more like a bunch of nice shots, none more than a few seconds long of Bruce and the band playing over the live version of the song. Which is a terrific song, but just judging the video as a video, I’m disappointed. Lots of shots of Bruce smiling, waving to the crowd, congratulating the band. Really does nothing for me. Too bad.

There’s a bus parked outside my house. A normal-sized, regular VTA bus. There are no buses with routes that pass my house yet this is not the first time I’ve seen one parked out here. It says “Not In Service” across the top (and as I write these words pulled away) but still, it’s weird. I live on a dinky little side street.

Aarrrggghhhhh!!!!! I know it’s too much to ask for a remodeling job to go perfectly. It must be a rule of the universe that there will be at least one problem before the work is done. And I ran into mine today. A day after the work was supposed to be complete, of course, so I suppose it’s actually the second bump, though I wasn’t even going to complain if a one day overrun was the only headache.

I was looking at the bathroom this morning when the workers arrived and realized that there was no shower door. Nor was there one sitting around in a box. I asked the contractor what was going on, since the work was (and I was told this just this morning) gong to be done today. He said I needed to speak with his boss, who would be coming by in a few minutes.

Sure enough, the manager showed up just now with the answer. The shower door is not going to be installed today. But “their” work is complete because they use a subcontractor that specializes in them to custom cut and install my shower door. Someone from that company was supposed to call by now, after the shower panels were in place, to make an appointment to measure the opening and a date to come back for the installation.

What? I asked the manager. Why didn’t he ever mention this subcontractor? He said that it was clear from the contract and pointed to the section titled Payment Schedule. Which showed a payment due today (the “last” day of work) except for the shower door. I mean the line actually says, at the side in parenthesis, except for shower door. And from this I am supposed to understand that the door installation will follow later. He claimed that the salesperson/designer with whom I worked was supposed to have explained this before I signed the contract. Of course, the manager said he always was very clear about this to his customers and would discuss the matter with the salesperson.

One of, if not the most, important reasons I chose this company to do the work is because they are both a general contractor and a supply house. No fingerpointing between companies with different objectives and schedules, just one place for me to go for any answers or with any problems. Too bad this wasn’t explained, too bad for me. Hell, the manager himself was here the very first morning and went over the schedule with me, day by day, and this bit was never mentioned. Never, and he didn’t claim to have done so when I asked. He did apologize.

And I am stuck with that apology. Just supposed to understand that this is standard practice, nothing else to be done about it, live with it, lump it. Of course. The contractor still expects the payment, the next to last due them, to be made today. Swell. No wonder contractors get into trouble even when there isn’t any need–too many assumptions, stuff that seems routine and simple to them but is unknown to an outsider, and you know what happens when an assumption is made. I repeat, Aarrrggghhhhh!!!!!

Fair is fair: I would point out that overall I’m quite satisfied with the job done to date. A big part of my upset stems from the surprise at finding this out right at the end and also because I scheduled the new carpet installation for Monday. When the contractors were supposed to be gone and no more dust, mess, or heavy stomping boots would be around.

The parts supplied all appear to be solid, good quality. The work is clean, neat, no loose edges or unsealed holes. The workers have been quick to ask my preference when there is any choice to be made. In the end, I will have waited a little longer than desired for this to be finished but I (from all that can be seen now) will be happy and have a great new bathroom.

Does it seem strange to anyone else that while the last chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, was widely derided as an appropriate choice because he’d spent his career as a lawyer for investment banks while the new (confirmed last night) chairman, William Donaldson, caused no such reactions even though he’s spent his career running investment firms? He is the Donaldson in Donaldson, Lufkin, Jenrette, has been the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and run one of the largest insurance firms.

“The concert video for “Waitin’ On A Sunny Day” will debut internationally on AOL Music on Friday, February 14 at 12:01 AM, EST. It will be available exclusively to AOL members worldwide for 24 hours at AOL Keyword: First View. Starting Saturday, February 15, the video will also be available to Web music fans at aolmusic.com.”

And don’t forget two Fridays from now, CBS will be broadcasting 60 minutes of Brcue and the E Street Band in concert.

Plus, The Rising is nominated for five Grammy Awards, the ceremony coming one week from Sunday.

Oh yeah! Bruce goodness!

For there is nothing lost

That may not be found

If it is but sought.

A gem of a movie, written by star Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Hulk), based on the classic 1795 novel by Jane Austen. The quote above is just one of the many wonderful little poem fragments scattered about the dialog. Sense and Sensibility, from 1995, is part of the set of similar films made in the surrounding years including Remains of the Day, Howards End, and Much Ado About Nothing–all of which starred Thompson. Can you understand why I was so smitten with her? Even after she made Junior with Ah-nuld. Much Ado, honestly, is one of my all time favorites.

In this film, Lee’s English language debut, Thompson is the eldest of three sisters of a rich Englishman’s second wife; the man dies as we open and his estate passes (by law) to his first wife’s son and the son’s shrewish wife makes sure that little goes to the women despite the father’s wishes. Still the girls are resilient and find a way to remain, in modest comfort, in the upper yet not noble class society of the day. The film truly brings across the mores and behaviors of the era, very stilted, demure, and circumscribed. A proper marriage, with or without love, is exceedingly important–yet our heroines find they can have both, in the end.

Roger Ebert, as usual, has the key insight into why Sense and Sensibility is so enjoyable: “This maddening, intriguing inability to simply blurt out the truth is indispensable to 19th century fiction, and I find it enormously satisfying. Better the character who leaves us to guess at unspeakable depths than one who bores us with confessional psychobabble.”

The cast is veritably stuffed with great names. Besides Thompson, there is Kate Winslett as the middle sister, beautiful and most desired, Hugh Grant as Thompson’s true love, Alan Rickman as one of Winslett’s suitors and Greg Wise as the other, wilder one. Hugh Laurie is particularly good in a small role as the husband of the girls’ cousin, so convincing in showing the consequence of a loveless marriage.

Absolutely recommended

In which I am quoted to good effect: Not Groundhog Day, but seeing shadow sides online. A very interesting article which was written by Dawn Pennington, a fellow blogger, for Counseling Today, an official publication of the American Counseling Association–Dawn’s also the magazine’s Managing Editor after a recent promotion.

Yes, the Great Hunt is over after only four weeks and the 49ers have hired Dennis Erickson away from Oregon State to be their new head coach. Woohoo, no exclamation point. True, Erickson won two national titles at the University of Miami but those were over a decade ago and he left there under a cloud, with the team on probation. He was a head coach in the NFL before, four years in Seattle before Holmgren, but only had one good season there and went 31-33. Even at Oregon State he only had one really good season, going 11-1 in 2000 and finishing with a huge win over Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl, but only getting about a .500 mark the rest of his tenure.

But that Fiesta Bowl win was very significant. 49ers owner “representative” Dr. John York (i.e., he’s married to team owner Denise Dibartolo York) is a Notre Dame alumnus and his school and its teams are very dear to him. So such a big win carries big weight in his decision making. Oddly Erickson is known as an offensive specialist but not someone who uses the West Coast offense and will need to retain current offensive coordinator Greg Knapp, QB coach Ted Tollner (another ex-Pac 10 head coach), and O-line coach Pat Morris to handle the details.

But the team needs help more on the defense, especially some hard core leadership. Jim Mora Jr. isn’t the man to give it, clearly, and that’s probably why he didn’t get the promotion; even one of his key players said that was unthinkable. The public stance, by the way, is that Mora might be retained, though to me this is doubtful and the team will need a big name to come in. Most of the other candidates were known for their defense.

But bang, out of the blue, even though so many other candidates were announced and discussed publicly, not a word about this man? I think Erickson has a chance to improve on Steve Mariucci’s results but also serious doubts that he will actually do so. I think Ted Cottrell, currently Jets defensive coordinator and apparently the Niners’ second choice, would have been a more exciting selection. Not too mention a defensive expert.

Here’s a link to a complete chart of the big NFL changes: Coaching Chart.

“But I miss you Michael!”

“I know but don’t.”

ROFL.