BillSaysThis

A car came roaring through the parking lot, screeched to a stop, a door slammed, and the car took off again. Everything sounded preternaturally loud. Jamie opened his eyes. Lara was looking at him and her eyes were wide open, and so was her mouth. She was stuttering and trying to talk. He looked down and saw blood on her sweater.

“I’m sorry,” she finally got out, “but I didn’t think anyone would come after me in a such a public place.” He was dumbfounded. Whatthefuck?

“I stole something, for a good cause.” She stopped and gasped as a shudder ran through her. “And those guys want it back. I need to get it to my bosses right away.”

“Let me call 911,” Jamie said as he reached for his cell. More blood stained her sweater. She reached out and put her hand on his phone.

“No, wait. Call my bosses. You have to use my phone, get it out of my purse, and speed-dial #2.” He wondered who she worked for as he reached over her to get into the purse. Must be some special people because he saw it was a videophone. He punched the buttons and gave her the phone.

“I’m shot” were the only words she said. Jamie couldn’t see the video but he heard a man reply: “What about the material?”

“I have it but I’m out of play. You need to get here damn fast or it’s gonna be terminal.” He couldn’t believe her tone of voice, as if she barely cared about dying, because as far as he was concerned the only way he was going out was of extreme old age, in his sleep. She shuddered again and he wondered what such pain felt like.

“We can be there in 20 minutes, maybe 15.” There was a pause, Jamie peaked over to see a dark-haired man turn away and type into a laptop. He turned back to the screen and Jamie ducked away. “Who was that I just saw?”

Lara told him that they had just met inside the coffee shop and that Jamie’ed just missed getting a couple of new holes himself. And that he didn’t run away after the gunfire, he’d stayed to see if she was alright. She handed the phone to Jamie.

The man stared at him for a few beats, eyes twitching over Jamie’s face.

“Will you help us?”

“Sorry about knocking your coffee all over you,” Jamie said, “just thinking too much about the clods at my office. Can we sit and drink our coffees together?”

She looked him over and then smiled. “Sure, why not. I’m Lara. I work with clods too. Don’t suppose you’re at the same place?”

“No, I work at a pretty small place and we’d know each other already if we did. I’m Jamie.” Now that he was looking at her, rather than focusing on his co-workers, he realized she was, well, gorgeous. Better looking than any woman who’d ever gave him the time of day before. Maybe he should ‘accidentally’ knock over more coffee cups.

“Oh, I see, so what is it you do, Jamie?”

“I write software. How about you?” He looked and didn’t see any ring on the appropriate finger.

“I’m in the marketing department. I know everyone around here is so high tech but I work for a boring old place. The men who run it are really old-fashioned but they like money and they know how to make it. My mom worked for them before she stayed home to take care of me and my brother. Do you live near here?”

“Yeah, just up the road a piece. I only stopped in so I’d get to the office later. One of the doofi on my team sent a really aggravating email just before I left the house.”

“You read work email at home?” She seemed pretty surprised.

“Sure. But that’s just because I work at home mostly and only go into the office one day a week. And I try and make that one day as short as possible. So you live nearby?” Jamie tried a little smile as he asked that. She seemed to notice and he wondered why he was ever nervous about talking to such beautiful women. Lara wasn’t too tall, maybe 5’5″, totally slim, wavy blonde hair past her shoulders, deep green eyes, great, angular cheekbones, and lips he was already dreaming about kissing.

“Not too far, over in Burlingame. I was just over here running an errand.” She licked her lips that sent a shiver up Jamie’s spine.

Then, all too soon, both their cups were empty and she got up to leave. Jamie kicked the little nervous man inside his chest to the side and offered to walk her out. He held the door open for her and couldn’t help notice how nicely her legs slid up right into her short red skirt. She pointed out her Miata, shielding her eyes form the sunlight, as they walked towards it.

Jamie heard a popping sound, then another, just as they reached the car. Lara screamed and jumped down between it and the Honda parked next to it. Jamie wondered why and then noticed the hole in the side of the Miata. He scrambled down next to Lara.

Will be spent together. The Sweet One moved in for good as of last night. Am I excited? Yes. Am I happy? Immensely. Do I love her? Forever? You bet! She is caring, intelligent, considerate, beautiful, sexy, loving, and the rest of you guys just lost out. Woohoo!

The surprise at opening was seeing Emile Heskey in the starting lineup at left midfielder in place of last week’s goalscorer John Arne Riise and El Hadji Diouf once again paired with Michael Owen upfront. The reason became clear later in the match as the announcer explained that LFC manager Gerard Houllier was upset with the Norwegian national team coach, who’d played Riise the entire 90 during a midweek friendly against Holland. The configuration change paid off immediately though as Diouf scored in the third and 50th minutes off assists from Heskey each time. Southampton’s Williams took a foolish yellow early on for protesting too much on a foul call against him and otherwise the remainder of the first half was quiet and mainly dominated by the Reds’ midfield play.

Liverpool avoided a troubling pattern of collapsing into defense after taking 1-0 leads last year and remained aggressive through the second half. In the 70th minute Houllier made his first change, sending Riise on in place of Michael Owen. Owen had a good match, with a goal disallowed for offsides on a rebound on a Danny Murphy blast off the top wood, but otherwise several nice runs. Heskey moved to the front with the substitution but in 10 minutes playing together he and Diouf could not team up for a third score, and Vladimir Smicer made his season debut by taking Diouf’s place. Bruno Cheyrou the came on in 85th minute for Stephen Gerrard. Just a few minutes later Danny Murphy made it 3-0 by putting a penalty kick into the top left shelf after defender Bridge took Cheyrou down just off the goal line.

Strong games were played by Murphy and Jerzy Dudek, although the keeper was really never challenged by the Southampton strikers in recording a second straight shutout. Hyypia and Henchoz were very strong in central defense to make that happen, and Traore kept his backline commitment while often involving himself on the attacking end. One question for Houllier has to be whether Abel Xavier will keep his place for Wednesday’s meeting with Blackburn or if Jamie Carragher or Markus Babble will be given playing time. My vote is to sit Xavier and see if one of the others can improve the right back space.

180 minutes and the sheet is still clean! Houllier has said he wants the Premiership title this year and six points in the first two matches is a great start on that path. Wednesday’s match, on the road at Blackburn, should be good as the Rovers have four points so far after slipping past Birmingham 1-0 today. I’m really starting to love Fox Sports World–they’ve shown both matches so far and will have Wednesday’s as well. Plus weekly doses of Australian Rules Football.

Go Reds!

Jamie usually drove straight to the office but on the spur of the moment stopped at Starbucks for a triple Macchiato. The thought of dealing with those clowns decided it for him. The email he’d gotten that morning was typical, from another programmer who had an amazingly high opinion of himself, in that it showed a total lack of understanding of programming quality: “It does not make much sense to throw an exception just for the reason that you don’t want to change code.” How someone could be hired into a major computer company without understanding that throwing exceptions was the language designer’s way of passing errors from one place to another was mystifying.

“Excuse me!” was what came in his ears just as he realized there was a really cute blonde woman in contact with his elbow. This was after his elbow had been in contact with her coffee cup and fairly concurrent with the coffee splashing out onto her sweater. Apparently the coffee was still really hot. “Owww” was the next sound. He cringed.

“I’m sorry, just lost in thought,” Jamie said, “but can I buy you a replacement?” She signalled her agreement before stomping off to the ladies room to try and repair the damage to her outfit.

Jamie woke up to the sound of soft music that sounded much louder, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes anyway. Another day wondering when his job would disappear. Another day fixing problems created by the wonderful fellows he worked with. He watched a tiny spider scurry across the ceiling.

Tuesdays were bad days. Long days. Days he had to drag his ass 48 miles each way to the office to sit in meaningless meetings. Where he didn’t have the right set up to get any work done. Jamie much preferred the other four days, working in his den, when he only needed the occasional telephone call or email to communicate with the clods in his group. At least he didn’t have to be in Santa Clara until noon and could miss the deadly morning traffic. He got out of bed, walked down to the kitchen where a fresh pot of coffee was waiting, and poured sweetner, Half and Half, and coffee into his mug. That first whiff of hot coffee in the morning, what an amazing aroma.

Mug emptied and refilled, he refreshed his email screen. Spam! As if he wanted a breast reduction/enlargement, a new mortgage, free passwords to pornography, or the rest of it. Delete. Links of interest from his personal websurfing slave/pal, save for later. Personal mail, answer. Work–arggh–reading through the crap these people send is worse than Nigerian dictator son spam! You’d think one of them would have heard of this thing called grammar. No different than the code they wrote, anyway. He went in the shower.

The phone rang, twice. Then it stopped. Strange, unless it was a hang up, since the answering machine only picks up after two rings once there’s already a message in the queue. He finished toweling off and looked at the machine. A digital 2 flashed back at him but before hitting the play button he checked the caller ID display; both calls were from ‘Unavailable’ and came during his shower. The messages were no help either, the only sounds a sigh and a click. Tuesday was starting out on the strange side.

We have many ways to memorialize people who gave their lives for America. (And other reasons, but this entry is not about them.) We build monuments: the Vietnam Memorial is an excellent example and many people are working towards the construction of a similar (in reason, not design) memorial to honor members of the American armed services who gave their lives in World War II. We often name portions of highways to remember police officers who died in the line of duty there; a portion of Highway 101 in San Mateo County has been designated to honor Millbrae policeman Dave Chetcuti after Chetcuti was killed while responding to a fellow officer’s call for help.

Yesterday, in what I feel is a terrific choice, the governors of New Jersey and New York (James McGreevey and George Pataki) proposed renaming Newark International Airport to Liberty International Airport. “The events of September 11th shattered our domestic tranquility and threatened us all,” said McGreevey. “Governor Pataki and I agree that it would be appropriate to commemorate the memory of the heroes of that day by this proposed name-change for Newark International Airport.” I have a special connection to that airport, I suppose, having grown up less than ten miles from it and having watched it transformed in the 1970s from a sleepy (dingy) little one (passenger) terminal to a busy, dynamic modern air facility. This is one of the few times it’s easy to say some politicians have done the right thing.

capspace and spacehunny sittin’ in a tree,

k-i-s-s-i-n-g,

first comes love, then comes living together,

then comes happiness and wonderment for ever!

The fear oozed out of him, all thick and gooey. Like the 200 ounce orange plastic jug of Tide with Color Safe Bleach, about ten feet away from where he crouched, that must have sat out in this sun too long and was now leaking a vaguely sea green line of laundry detergent on the cracked and faded concrete that covered maybe half of the garbage-strewn yard.

How, he wondered, had he ended up crouching in the narrow space between an old storage shed and a back fence. Hiding from some thugs sent to prevent him from testifying against some bad, bad man. He hoped that his hidey hole was good enough but from the way his body shook he had his doubts. The thugs were across the street searching in an abandoned warehouse and he could hear them yelling to each other as each checked the little places he might have been.

The sweat beaded down his forehead and his stomach got tighter each time he heard another voice. Flies and worse were out in the noonday July sun but those he barely noticed, or the rumble of trucks and cars on the next block. None of that mattered, would make a difference in his survival, and so he was bit or not bit by the flies but never lifted his arm to flick them away. He was far more concerned that the motion might somehow reveal his location. One of the thugs had sent a few stray bullets his way when they first approached him and he had no interest in hearing that sound again.

A helicopter flew by overhead, so low he wondered if it was part of the search for him, and he looked up but it wasn’t that close after all and simply continued on and the sound faded. The motion led some of the sweat down to his eyes, so that he finally noticed it and wiped his sleeve across his face. He sighed, took a deep breath, tried to calm down. But then he heard another yell from across the way and risked a look around the side of the shed. One thug was standing out in front of the warehouse; they were done searching and he wanted the other two to come out and move on. A stabbing pain shot through his gut as he realized they weren’t giving up.

Wow, this was a weird movie, the kind you watch and then ask yourself where the fuck did writer/director/lead actor Eric Schaeffer come up with this? Wirey Spindell is an autobiography of someone named Wirey Spindell, the child of hippies, a kid who doesn’t make it to age seven without becoming a sexual predator, who shuttles from school to divorced parent to elsewhere, always fueled by drugs, alcohol, and sex. Until, in college, he realizes that he either stops or dies. And so he goes into rehab and gives up the toxins…and the sex. Until he meets the lovely Callie Thorne (who was a detective towards the end of Homicide: Life on the Streets). Schaeffer tells this story through flashbacks, with three actors playing his younger self, until we get back to the present. Let’s just pray this wasn’t his autobiography.

Recommended if you like weird artsy films

Had a Heineken this afternoon, after a homeowners association/contractor manager fell through because the contractor forgot the meeting, and that is making me feel like not blogging just now. Plus, the huge fire at Santana Row is hypnotizing me. Plus, I was at the dentist before this and she had to apply a topical anesthetic. So drowsy!

Opening note of appreciation to Fox Sports World for giving us same day coverage of Liverpool FC’s Premiership opener against mid-level opponent Aston Villa. Manager Gerard Houillier has written the same names in the starting list except for Djimi Traore at left back (due to injury) and, the surprise, El Hadji Diouf replacing Emil Heskey as Michael Owen’s partner up front. Diouf, you may recall, scored the goal that set the tone for this year’s World Cup, putting Senegal over France 1-0 in the tournament’s first game.

Three early yellows: Alpay of AV (14th minute) for a bad challenge on El Hadji Diuof, then Diuof four minutes later for protesting too much, and Haman for a serious feet into the legs of Hendrie.

In the middle of a strong offensive stretch, in the 21st minute came the best challenge yet for AV, Dudek saved a goal by knocking a shot against the crossbar.

28th: Gerard puts a beautiful cross across the box right onto the foot of Diouf only a couple of yards in fron of the goal bu the Senegalese international couldn’t get the handle and lifted it well over the top. Three minutes later John Arne Riise just barely misses the top corner with a header. Short while later Danny Murphy takes the third yellow for the Reds to block an AV breakout.

First half ends with some good offense from Liverpool but the Aston Villa defenders, especially star Turkish international Alpay, are up to the challenge and we at 0-0. Liverpool is certainly favored but, after Arsenal (2-0 over newly promoted Birmingham City) and Manchester United (1-0 West Bromwich Albion) opened their seasons with victories, all three points must be taken home.

Second half gets off to a bang as John Arne Riise scores from the left corner off a very quick counter attack. AV had two solid shots on goal but Liverpool defenders were there to block both. After a couple of headers forward, Danny Murphy took charge and raced up through the center, passing off to Riise at the 30 yard line. The Norwegian international used one dribble to settle the ball and then drilled it into the net with his left foot past the outstretched feet of two defenders and Eckleman, the AV keeper. The Reds were undefeated (6-0-1) when Riise scored last season!

The teams continue to pressure each other, slight edge to LFC, but nothing too serious as the 70th minute is reached and AV’s Staunton gets a yellow for a kick to Diouf’s calf that puts the striker on the ground. Owen disappointed in the 79th with a chance to put the ball in on a penalty shot that Enckelman barely deflected with his right foot and at the next stoppage Owen is pulled for Heskey.

The Reds had the best defense in the Premiership last season and show they intend to repeat that statistic this season as they allowed Aston Villa almost no decent chances to score. Very good signs were the return from injury of Danny Murphy and Steven Gerrard; indeed Gerrard was named ‘man of the match’ on the LFC website. Next up is a home match against Southampton on Saturday. The team lost and drew in two tries against Southampton last season and this is one team they need to improve against to move up from last year’s second place.

Saw a really amazing family film tonight called Tortilla Soup. Family in the sense of being about a family although the movie is also fine to watch with the young ones. Hector Elizondo is the patriarch and Elizabeth Pena, Jacqueline Obradors (the latest NYPD Blue hottie), and Tamara Mello are his daughters. The plot is pretty basic, Mom is long since passed away and the daughters each have a romantic episode, and Dad has lost his senses of taste and smell. The action revolves around the kitchen–Dad is a master chef and he’s taught his daughters well–so a nice bowl of popcorn hit the spot.

Director Maria Ripoll is the real master here, bringing out terrific performances from all the actors, framing the shots with lots of bright colors, and managing the pacing spot on. This is actually a remake of an acclaimed Chinese film (co-written and directed by Crouching Tiger’s Ang Lee) called Eat Drink Man Woman but it really works unlike so many other remakes.And I can’t leave out mention of Raquel Welch, who looks amazing at 60, showing as a woman looking to take Elizondo as husband number five. On the surface this doesn’t come across as such a good film but trust me, which probably accounts for it’s less than amazing box office, but it is.

Recommended

Earlier, while waiting for the Sweet One’s delicious chicken adobo, we took in a classic Jerry Lewis movie, Cinderfella, which concerned family as well but in an entirely different light. Superficially an update of Cinderalla, complete with fairy godfather (the extremely red-nosed Ed Wynn), this really is just a vehicle for Lewis’s physical comedy. Dame Judith Anderson plays the wicked stepmother (Trek connection: Anderson played High Priestess T’Lar in The Search for Spock), Robert Hutton and Henry Silva are the brothers, and Anna Maria Alberghetti as the lovely Princess Charming, staying with Anderson et fils while visiting America to find a husband. Lewis’ family expect her to hook up with Hutton. Wink wink nudge nudge. But this is a prime example of the work Lewis did after leaving Dean Martin; so many dismiss him these days with a snarky comment about how the French love him but that’s unwarranted–in his prime, the late ’40s through the mid-60s, he did work as well as anyone.

Recommended

Carlos Angelo put in a lot of work to give us the Robert A. Heinlein, Dean of Science Fiction Writers website. Do him the favor of reading it because the site is great and Heinlein is still the best Science Fiction author we’ve had. Or check out Blex Strickland’s pages, such as this essay on Heinlein’s Future History.

Dan acknowledges that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is not only underrated but perhaps the best Bond film of all, which is just what I said in my review, and points to Jaquandor’s series reviewing all 19 Bond films (plus Never Say Never Again, but not including Casino Royale), in which Jaquandor also names OHMSS the top 007. Why, you ask? This is something I had difficulty putting my finger on but he gets to the point: “Where so many Bond films a[re] faux-epics, mistaking huge sets and massive battles for grandeur, OHMSS gets it right by telling an epic story.”

Last month I commented on a ploy used by the very rich to avoid inheritance taxes through a technique involving odd insurance policies. I’m glad to report that the IRS has finally ruled on these schemes and in fact ruled that they are not legal. “I think a lot of people will be in deep yogurt,” said one prominent tax commentator. He expects lots of litigation over this ruling, meaning, as so often is the case, the big winners will be attorneys racking up the hourly fees. Surprisingly, the two men most responsible for devising and spreading the use of this scheme were not available for comment but one can expect them to be prime targets of the lawsuits., fair enough considering the fees they’ve raked in over the last five years

This company, Bravenet Web Services, provides many free services to webmasters. At one point I signed up to try one or two of them out, though I never actually implemented any on my website. To even try things out, the site requires webmasters to register and provide a valid email address. I try to use the unique email address for each site I register at, usually websitename@mysite. Now I’m getting porn spam to the email address I provided to them. Swell. On the other hand, I can block that address now and not be bothered by these assholes.

garret may be fourth for “greasy, grimey gopher guts” but I’m eight for something a lot weirder: 2003 xxx women sex men photo. Especially because I don’t have any sex photos on this website. Sorry. Especially to the guy who was searching in Arabic and came visiting here. I see lots of referals for restaurant searches (I come out first in Google for Bucca di Beppo Palo Alto, for example), George Carlin, Springsteen, and song lyrics and movie quotes. I’m #1 for my own name. All those are fine with me. Just keep your dirty sexland.com searches to yourself!

Five cute A Squad cheerleaders, who add a sixth along the way, show that, despite being made of Sugar & Spice, when one of their sisters is in need, they are willing to do the deed. So, perhaps that first sentence was a little on the cute side. But that’s about the level of this movie: very cute and not very demanding.

Marley Shelton, who must have been thrilled to be still playing a teenage character at age 27, is the captain of the group and she gets her dream, having the gorgeous quarterback/most popular guy in school fall for her. Only he (James Marsden, who must have signed on to play this doofus before getting the Cyclops role in x_men) knocks her up just before the junior prom so when the tell the folks they’re getting married and keeping the baby, the ignorant parents kick them out. They get an apartment, jobs (she in a supermarket bank branch, he in a video store), and stay in school. Flash forward to the next school year–the movie does without any kind of indication–and Shelton has realized that they just aren’t going to make it.

Then she has an epiphany: her and the girls will rob a bank. One of the other cheerleaders, played by Mena Suvari (and yes, this is well after American Beauty and American Pie), has a mom she’s never met doing life in the joint for killing Suvari’s father. Well, one less than tearful visit later and the girls have gotten all the instruction needed from mom’s pals. They need guns–but not bullets–and lucky for them, since they don’t have the cash for the guns, the dealer has a good looking daughter who’s pining to be a cheerleader. Fern joins the squad, the squad gets the guns.

One last gift from mom in jail, a set of Betty doll masks, and the girls are off to their one-time entry into the life of crime. Everything, mainly, goes well, they get home with piles of cash and a cute bassinet for the mom-to-be. Except…Lisa (The Practice’s Marla Sokoloff), a B Squad cheerleader, is in the supermarket and realizes that the robbers are her rivals.Faster than you can say “Cheerleader captains can’t be seven months pregnant with twins,” Lisa is the new A Squad captain and the alibi for her new pals. The big twist, from the genius word processor of Mandy Nelson, is that the whole movie is being told by Lisa, in flashback, to the FBI while the A Squad sits in a cell. Until she coughs up, at the very end, the alibi.

I guess teen movies are generally supposed to be “fun” and “cute” and not too concerned about taking adult viewers like me on an emotional journey. They are cute, the girls run around in skimpy cheerleading outfits and sometimes just bras and panties (even the ultra-Christian one), and come out ahead in the end. I guess I was expecting a little something more from a movie written, directed (Francine McDougall), and produced (Wendy Finerman) by three women.

Neutral: not bad for a teen comedy but not great either

In this year of scandals at companies too numerous to name any longer, Winn-Dixie Stores has come up with a new one. The management of this publicly traded company has made a deal with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars to purchase any unsold tickets to home games in order to prevent any local TV blackouts. This deal comes only one week after the company announced a net loss for the quarter ended June 26 of $21.9 million, or 16 cents a share, compared with year-earlier net income of $13 million, or 9 cents a share, although the executives tried to duck the reality by throwing a bunch of one-time items to explain the loss. No getting around the fact that the stock is off over one third from it’s most recent highs. Jacksonville’s mayor stood next to the Winn-Dixie CEO to announce this deal, complete with balloons and a marching band, but I certainly wonder if there aren’t more pressing needs for corporate charity in such a big city. Don’t you?