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Cyberpunk

The word actually feels silly these days. Here we are, the year 2002, and things are pretty much same-old same-old. Sure, maybe we are creeping towards the corporate-dominated future full of technology-enhanced people and covert wars and a public kept far from the truth. But it doesn't feel like it always seemed like it would. Japan hasn't dominated world culture, the big corporations all seem pretty dumb, and state-of-the-art chip implants aren't anything more interesting than they use to track wildlife.

But we do have Max Headroom reruns on TechTV to remind us of how we thought things would be. When I was a kid watching this, my favorite was the episode with the skateboard fighting illegal sport. I'm scared to think what the show seems like now, although since I don't get TechTV on my hundreds of channels, I mercifully won't find out. But we need to get moving if we're going to live in the year 2020 I grew up imagining. Just be careful to avoid the ridiculous stuff and we'll be ok.

WUSA Game: San Jose 1, Carolina 2 (and USA Women's National Team vs. Finland)

A Saturday doubleheader on a day that looked like it might start pouring at any minute - not ideal, but everything seemed to work out fine. We got our tailgating worked out a little better this time, bringing a more reasonable amount of food this time and getting into the correct lot without any trouble.

The first game was the CyberRays, who looked off the whole time. They gave up an early goal after some ping-pong in front of the goal that reminded me of my Sunday games. They recovered and got shots off, but nothing too dangerous. Finally in the second half Katia scored a nice goal to tie it up, and I thought maybe they'd pull it off like they had last time, but a nice free kick over the wall by Carolina put them back ahead for good. Was not having Brandi in the lineup for this game such a big impact? I hope not.

The USA Women's National Team game wasn't quite as dramatic, although it was a lot of fun. The USA dominated the whole game, and I felt bad for the Finland team, who definitely would have won if the contest was for most players wearing pigtails. The crowd around us definitely got into this game, though, and it was fun seeing a lot of the famous women players all out there at once.

Movie Review: In the Mood for Love

In the Mood For Love is a Hong Kong movie by Kar-wai Wong. I didn't like this as much as "Chungking Express" although it is probably a technically better quality movie. The acting is well done and appropriately subtle, the sets and costumes are all very nice (although I wonder how realistic it is that Mrs. Chan has so many really nice dresses...) and the plot doesn't follow all the typical dramatic conventions which is nice. Something about it, though, made it not completely click for me. It started out well, but towards the end it skips ahead through the chronology and I didn't quite understand all of the decisions all the characters made. Also, only including the spouses as voices seemed a little over-the-top in making the points I think that was supposed to make. I think this might be a movie to try watching again when I am more in the mood for this kind of restrained, subtle love story.

Movie Review: Zatoichi:The Adventures of a Blind Man (Zatoichi sekisho yaburi)

IMDB's entry for Zatoichi sekisho yaburi seems to have the wrong year, since everywhere else lists it as 1965. I guess when you have 25 films in a series, it is tricky to keep them all straight. IFC is running one every Saturday as some "samurai saturday" series, although Zato Ichi is not a samurai as far as I can tell. He's a blind masseur who also happens to be a great swordsman and goes around helping people, A-Team style. This was actually a pretty enjoyable movie as far as silly action movies go, although there was far less action than I would have expected. Most of the fights are over pretty quick, and the movie concentrated more on the relationships between the characters involved in some gangster intrigue around a new year's festival. I wasn't convinced about Shintaro Katsu's depiction of blindness, but he was likable enough. I may pay a little more attention to trying to watch more of these as long as IFC is playing them.

Soccer: Tie, 4-4

Check it out, we didn't lose! Whooo.

We actually played a pretty strong game - lots of good passing, excellent pressure in the middle of the field. Only one bobble by the goalie. A few missed chances up front, but also some awesome headers for goals. Derek scored twice, which is hopefully the start of a lot of future scoring for him. My game was ok, with a few good stops but I did let one cross through for one of the goals. Oh well. It was a good game, I had fun.

I stayed and played part of another game, but everyone seemed tired and there was no good passing on the side I was on. I could only do a few all-out runs back before getting really tired, and just wasn't motivated enough to stay the whole game. I am a quitter.

Network Issues

Network seems to be having issues; not sure if it is the site or my end of things at home. But it makes it trickier to get my updates in. Let's see if I can catch up here.

Fully Equipped Mountain View

I learned today that Mountain View has a hazardous material clean-up truck. And if some weird liquid is spilled in the CostCo parking lot, they'll come and clean it up. First they'll throw down something that looks like sand on it, then they get a weird vacuum truck to suck it up. But this must not have been too dangerous, since they didn't clear out much space around the spill.

Too expensive

I am going to buy something crazy expensive and then later take a $54 billion dollar loss because it just sounds like a lot of fun. I should really learn more about how corporate finance works at some point.

Tivo Problems

I turned on the TV today and the screen had an evil green vertical line down the middle and a jumpy, fuzzy picture. No good. Was the TV broken? I checked the PS2 and its picture came through fine. I went back and tried the tivo menu, which showed fine but the background was all messed up. Was it Tivo? Maybe it was the cables. My roommate had an extra set. Still bad. Maybe it was the video in on the TV? We tried a different set of plugs, still no good. Maybe it was the video out on the Tivo? We tried an S-video cable. No luck.

So I put all my years of experience in the computer industry to work, and we restarted the tivo. It came back up in a couple of minutes and the picture was fine.

Whew.

Yet another dream with problems

I do have a long-term fantasy about being a stay-at-home dad someday. I think it would be fun. Well, stay at home dads may have a higher risk of heart disease, so it had better be fun. I wonder how well controlled this study really was, though. The link to the info about the study shows it is a long-term study of residents in Framingham, Massachusetts, and does include lifestyle surveys. Maybe I just want to be skeptical because I don't want the results to be true. I guess I'll just have to wait to see if the results are reproduces elsewhere.

Not that I am in any danger of suddenly becoming a stay-at-home dad...

Drink Club

I don't want to show all the pictures we took, but here's an idea of some of the drinks.

From left to right: Liquid Ecstasy (very tasty), Aqua (tasty but creepy texture), and the Blue Margarita (not that great).

From left to right: The X-Faktor (surprisingly good), more Liquid Ecstasy, and Water.

Not pictured:

Blue Cosmo, Black Orchid, and the Blue Nut.

Please Categorize Yourself

Everyone should obviously be categorized into a neat little bin. Enter your zip code to find out what your choices are thanks to some (cough) wonderful marketing technology, I'm sure. I got better results with the "microvision" system than the "PRIZM" system, but I obviously need to change my magazine subscriptions.

Hey, at least you get more options than Meyers-Briggs, although here they get so specific you won't think it is as accurate. They'll never succeed as psychics making that mistake.

Happy Earth Day

Hopefully it is as nice outside by you as it is here so you can go and enjoy the outdoors. And hopefully you'll make those little extra efforts so we'll be able to keep doing that for many years in the future.

Concert Review: Dan Bern, Stew

Stew (who is also in a band called The Negro Problem) opened the show. I had never heard of Stew, but it turned out to be a guitar-playing singer/songwriter playing with a woman who played bass, keyboards, and did a little back-up singing. His first song was enough to win me over - it was about Ken's bitterness with the world because Mattel won't allow him to reveal that he is gay and kids always force him to make out with Barbie. He was good at telling little stories in the middle of his songs, which made it a really entertaining performance. A few of his seemingly more serious songs didn't seem very interesting, especially since all of the guitar parts in all of his songs seemed pretty simple, but overall it was a great set for an opening band. Things were off to a great start!

Dan Bern then came on. I had listened to a couple of CDs so I was familiar with his sound but didn't really know any of his songs. He played a few things and stopped in the middle of a couple of songs, which seemed kind of strange. Then he went on a really long rant about Barry Bonds, in some kind of preacher-style voice, which was entertaining but went on for too long. The crowd then seemed a little divided - some people yelled for him to "play more songs" or "play an entire song" after he stopped something in the middle again. I thought it was kind of annoying when he stopped in the middle of things, but it was still entertaining to watch. I had never really appreciated having someone sing a complete song in a concert before. He definitely seemed a little "off" with all the rants - a little too much Heineken before the show? or something else? The interaction with the crowd was also interesting to watch, because he went into a rant similar to the classic "I'm an artist, not a jukebox" (he wouldn't play the tiger woods song, although he did take some other requests) but he also went on rants about why he didn't want people sitting down at the show so he had them take away a bunch of the chairs they were going to have. Then he announced he was going to play one more song, but went into a string of about maybe 6 songs (which he played all the way through, I think) before the show ended. I was confused because it seemed like there was no encore, instead the house lights went up and we got the announcement that it was last call. Strange.

We made it back to the car, where we got into a heated discussion about the show. 2 of the people in the group were upset at Dan, saying he acted like an ass to the audience and they were upset about him not playing the songs all the way through. It made me wish I had kept track of how many songs he did that too - it didn't really seem like that many to me, but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. 3 of us thought the show was enjoyable. I liked it, maybe not only for the music but also for the unusual interaction. I feel like he wasn't being much of an asshole to the audience, and that it was mostly directed at the people in the crowd yelling at him. Maybe he did alienate the sitters, but every artist makes that decision, they probably just don't talk about it on stage - and he did let them keep the tables and chairs in the back third of the room, which is more than they have had at any of the other shows I have seen there. As for the stopped-songs, I guess it didn't bother me that much. Maybe if I had been familiar with the songs more it would have been troubling, but he kept going with a story or a rant or another song, so it didn't seem so bad to me. I felt like I was sharing a unique concert experience, which was nice, even if it did involve some drunken rambling or aborted songs. He also played some songs that I thought were really good and engaging. And it put me back into a show-going mood, which I hadn't really been in since Noisepop. So I thought it was a good evening of entertainment.

Soccer: Loss, 4-2

This one was full of goals for the other team that should not have happened - which may replace the "midfield didn't control the ball" as the theme for this season. Our keeper got his hands on a lot of balls that he then dropped, about 3 of which directly led to goals. It also wears down the defenders a little more since we always have to come back just in case there is a bobble and we need to try to clear it. We also gave up a goal on a penalty kick, which was unfortunate. We played a really strong opening game, scoring early on a lucky shot, and keeping the pressure around their goal most of the time. It was also nice because we had all the work people show up and we had a couple of subs to use. Unfortunately, Jeff got injured in the first half, so we were down to one sub for most of the time.

My excitement was wearing the new goggles for the game. They worked out OK, although it took a while to get used to them. I feel like I am wearing a superhero mask. I played OK, I guess, but didn't have any really strong plays. I tried to do a better job being vocal, but I worry that I am just annoying the other defenders. We didn't have a good structure to the defense - offsides lines kept creeping back too far, and we didn't rotate to the ball well, although that became hard as they started bringing a lot of people on the attacks.

The Drive Back

The full concert report will come tomorrow, when I am a little more awake, but I had a good time. The drive back was interesting, though, since 2 people really disliked the show, and 3 of us had a good time with it. Different people seem to have different ideas about what makes a good concert experience. So, in the interest of making my little attempts at "concert reports" more useful, these are things I like at shows: new versions of songs I already like, using unusual instrumentation to good effect, audience participation that works, question and answer sessions, stories about the songs, entertaining stories about other things, performers clearly saying who they are, music that gets the crowd to move a little, and having merchandise available for purchase. There is probably more, but those are some of the random things I look for beyond the music itself. Things I don't like? Mixing that makes it impossible to understand the vocals, crowds that smell too much like smoke, unenthusiastic crowds, songs that all start to sound the same, songs that repeat too much, bands that don't look like they are having fun, having to clap too long for encores, and not getting to hear my favorite songs in some form.

I'm sure there will be more, but that should give the background for the report tomorrow. It's like a multi-part entry! How exciting - almost a cliffhanger ending here.

Survivor

Well, we made it through the inaugural drink club. Some of us may have done better than others, but I think it was enough fun to do again. There were of course, pictures taken and meeting minutes recorded, but for the sake of both everyone involved and the people reading this, I think it would be unwise to post that all here. For the record, though, the liquid ecstasy was probably my favorite, although the aqua was easily the most frightening.

And now, off to the concert tonight. With much less drinking, I hope.

Dream Job

Google has a potential dream job of mine: look up things online for money. If only I got to pick what I was looking up, it could be perfect. And there may be a question of how much money you can make doing that. But it is a minimum of $3 per question, and I already saw some more expensive ones in the queue. Hrmm...

Today's Goal

Is to begin the process of getting the special glasses to play soccer with. Yes, it could be a year too late, but better than never, right?

Not sure I'll have time for it, but hopefully I can at least get the prescription today.

Whooo.

Update: A success. The eye doctor could even make them in a couple of hours, so I am going to pick them up tomorrow. Of course, insurance only covers it if they send them away to be done, so I get a little unexpected expense. Oh well. Whooo, sports goggles.

Movie Review: Bleacher Bums

I saw this on the Tivo, which described it as being a story of various people at a game of a woeful Chicago baseball team, and thought "Is it about the Cubs?" so I got suckered into watching it. It seemed like they didn't have the rights to say it was the cubs, but it very clearly was - ivy-covered walls, last world series win in 1908, a slugger with a last name "Losa", a manual scoreboard, and fans that throw home run balls from the other team back. It is a shame they couldn't use the actual names for the current players. And it was very evident it was a movie based on a play, with the limited number of sets and the distinct transitions between them. It brought back a lot of memories of going to see Cubs games when I was a kid, and it was neat to see them get some of the details right, like the trough-style urinals in the men's bathrooms, even if the bathrooms were too clean. The characters weren't particularly interesting, especially since they all seemed pretty typical stock characters that followed the path you would expect them to over the course of the movie. The "cheerleader" character did bring some excitement to things, but the slapstick chase at the end was not needed. I think the movie was OK if you have a particular fondness for the Cubs or baseball games, perhaps, but I imagine the play is more entertaining if done well. I think the character interactions could be more interesting in that format, since the movie tried to stretch beyond the bleachers by showing game footage and other things that weren't particularly well done.

And the random note is that Dennis Franz and Joe Mantegna were some of the co-authors of the play and apparently appeared in the original production in 1978. I guess the play has had a long life. Probably longer than this movie will have.

Free is good

And here is some evidence that supports the idea. I know it is true for me for buying music. It hasn't happened as specifically for me with reading material, but I have done a lot less of that online.

Long Day

Yesterday was a long work day.

Today may also be a long work day, although it hopefully can't be too long because I need to take my Japanese midterm tonight.

Which, of course, will be a long midterm since I did not have much time to study last night.

Complain, complain, complain...

But really this is more of an excuse for lack of updates here than me wanting to complain. I'm doing plenty of real-life complaining, I don't feel much of a need to do it here. But I'll try to put up some links to something at least later on today...

Do ants have religion?

I often wonder this same thing.

Maybe the ants will figure out how to get along better than we will eventually.

(OK, I realize that, on the whole, ants are probably much more agressive than humans. But the 3600 mile long ant colony is a story that is way too good to pass up.)

Bankruptcy, the Internet, and Indie Comics

Last week, I was reading a column I occasionally read about the comics industry. And it told a scary story.

LPC had filed for bankruptcy, and was defaulting on payments to a lot of its publishers. LPC is (according to their web site) the 3rd largest book distributor in america (of course, their website also claims they are "financially secure", so keep that in mind) and they were taking an active role in selling "comics" to the big bookstores, especially the indie comic publishers. At the Alternative Press Expo 2 years ago, most of the publishers thought that LPC was going to be the way they found new audiences since the comics industry seemed to be collapsing. Sales to comic book stores are almost all handled through Diamond, which has a virtual monopoly on the distribution end of the system. (Smaller distributors specializing in indie stuff do exist, but aren't really competitors to Diamond. And the story of how Diamond got to that position is an interesting one, but for another time. This was the best link I could find right now.)

Well, the comics industry continues to sputter along (apparently 30,000 copies sold per month is considered a reasonable run these days. Looking in the small print in some of my comics from the mid-eighties shows that back then 150,000 was a pretty typical distribution) but now it looks like some trouble for the bookstore distribution. And potentially big trouble for smaller publishers that were counting on those checks to clear.

Top Shelf was the first to make an appeal to fans on the popular comic messageboards. They needed cash to continue operating, and offered a sale for people buying directly from them. Otherwise they would be history. 12 hours later, they said they had enough orders that things looked like they would turn out ok. This is a good thing, since they are one of my favorite publishers, putting out all sorts of good stuff like James Kochalka's stories about monkeys and robots and things like Steve Lafler's stories about jazz-playing bugs.

I had started making my mental list of what books to pick up when I discovered they had already announced things were ok. I decided to hold off on placing the order in case there were other publishers in trouble. I could also make the trip to the local comic store to buy the books, which would also help out the stores that might not be having a good time with this.

Sure enough, Drawn and Quarterly announced they were having trouble as well on the message boards. And they still haven't posted any "all-clear" announcement, so I made my order. They don't have the range of interesting stuff that Top Shelf has, but they do make Optic Nerve, which is one of the best comics ever. Losing that would be terrible.

So how does this story end? Will D&Q be saved? Will LPC find a way to keep distributing? If they go away completely will another company take their place? Distribution doesn't seem like an easy business these days. Will this actually help indie comics since they got people to try new stuff and order directly?

I was disappointed the companies hadn't posted any of this story to their web sites. For those of us who don't keep close tabs on the industry, much less the messageboards (not a good use of time, really), the story could have gone by unnoticed. If they want to support more casual comics fans to grow the audience for comics, they need to work on having friendlier and more accessible ways to get involved. Also, the online ordering at both companies left something to be desired, as does almost every comic company website.

It is easy for me to see why the comic industry has stayed in such an isolated bubble despite having produced some really incredible work at times.

Industries don't make music

This and this are some interesting little pieces about the bizarre world of the mainstream recording industry. But you are all going out and supporting the indie labels, right?

Tastes like chicken

Soccer: Loss, 3-0

The score looks pretty bad, but the game didn't seem so bad. How many times have I said that before?

I played sweeper for most of the first half until I got smacked in the face with the ball. No real bleeding (yay! although I do have a little scrape on the side of my nose...) but I subbed out just in case. I seemed fine, so I went back in, where the lens of my glasses promptly popped out. I found it, but couldn't fix them, so I had to play for a little while with no glasses. It turns out seeing is a really nice skill to have in a soccer game. So I subbed out and tried to do some repair work. With the aid of a paperclip, a band-aid, some wirecutters, and Kristen, I was all set to go back in. I played the whole second half without other injuries or equipment failures. Whoo.

I thought I played a pretty decent game. I tried to talk more, with some marginal success, and had a few good runs back to break up shots on breakaways. A couple of times things got a little more physical than I would have liked, but I didn't get called for a penalty so maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe I have been watching too many professional games lately! The other team had some nice players on it, too, and they didn't seem to complain about it.

The problem, which sounds just like last season, is that we couldn't sustain any pressure in the midfield. We got out-hussled, and didn't play positions well to start an attack out of the defense. Maybe we'll figure out how to do this someday.

Tailgating for Dummies

We went to the home opener CyberRays game today. Beforehand we attempted a little tailgating, but it didn't quite all come together. Greg did a fine job bringing enough groceries (although I am a complete believer in buying nice buns, since dry, crumbly buns can ruin the finest sausage or veggie equivalent) and Roger got a nice little grill (even if it is propane and we didn't really know how to light it at first) but we got there late and went to the wrong parking lot first and didn't get to relax and enjoy it. But I think we'll be ready for next time. Hopefully it won't be so crazy hot since the game is later in the day.

The game itself was fun. The CyberRays looked good the first half, but it was still scoreless. I'm not convinced Pretinha is going to be as effective as Julie Murray, but I was very impressed with the CyberRays' draft pick Danielle Borgman. She had more runs up the field as a defender than I have seen in a while. Brandi was disappointing to me as usual, especially when she missed the penalty kick. But the team as a whole recovered extremely well and kept fighting, and didn't let up even after they tied it. It was impressive to see that kind of character in the first match of the season.

I was also suprised by the sparse attendance, especially for an opener. Not looking so good for the team, I imagine. Hopefully things will pick up.

Ooooh! Ahhhh!

Unable to make real progress on more useful things, this site is now equipped with a marginally functioning about page. If I didn't answer your burning questions, please let me know.

Don't talk about drink club

Let's say you are planning a get-together with some friends which you are calling "Drink Club".

Skipped out on too many classes during bartending school?

Don't worry, The Webtender is here to help you figure out how to use up the rest of the Frangelico and Midori in the same drink.

Beer commercials

I am tempted to watch more TV just to hear Modest Mouse and Smog songs being used in Miller Beer commercials. They don't seem to be here. Is it April Fools day again already?

Google APIs

Sure, everyone is pointing to the new Google Web APIs. What will people really do with them? Is search data the most useful kind of data? Probably not. Querying into Amazon's database, or IMDB, or something like that would be more useful, perhaps. It almost seems like the spelling correction call is the really useful part of this API right now. I don't have a pressing need for adding search capabilities in other applications. Google's interface is already pretty great for that. Boxes showing top search results seem rather useless, or at least a little too egocentric for the examples I have seen so far. But spellcheckers... the world would be a better place with more spellcheckers in it. Like in blogging software.

So I downloaded the developer's kit. Put it on the list of projects I probably won't get to for a while.

Conversation

Good conversation is a very nice antidote to a lot of things. Even if it doesn't answer all my questions.

Thanks!

Ummm

For no reason I can think of, I have been subscribed to "Sports Illustrated Women". Some targeted marketing scheme somewhere went horribly awry.

That special time of year

I got to the office today and overheard someone saying "TurboTax.com is the greatest thing ever!"

Ahhh, the joys of springtime...

Soccer: Loss (3-1)

It was actually a pretty close game. Mark played keeper the whole time, and did a great job. I played left fullback the whole game, and did OK for the most part, breaking up a fair number of runs. Of course, one time I let in a cross that went for a goal, and one time I should have marked someone who got the goal. Their third goal I should have stopped on the line, but instead just missed my clear so it banged off the post and went in. Damn. Of course, there are always things that you could try to do better in retrospect. Our offense missed a lot of good chances, although Derek had a really excellent run for our goal. With the heat picking up (especially with all these 3:30 games!) it would have been nice to have some subs, too. See, I lose and I start to whine more!

Movie Review: Kikujiro (Kitano)

The title character of Kikujiro is a rude and mean criminal who is supposed to take an 8-year old boy on a trip to see his mother. At first he tries to use the boy to win money at the race track (gambling on bicycle races?) but after several crazy adventures involving bikers, artists, hotels, bus stops, child molesters, yakuza, and lots of hitchhiking, he seems to show affection for the boy. A big part of this is realizing what has happened to the boy's mother and how it is similar to his own childhood. So is it any good? Well, it is OK. The acting is entertaining, especially the more comedic secondary characters. But for me, the biggest enjoyment I got out of this was some of the japanese culture shown, especially the behavior of the various people that they tried to get rides from. How deep does the politeness of japanese society go? In the case of the hotel clerk, it went pretty far, which was surprising to me. I think my lack of understanding of some of this culture may have decreased my ability to fully appreciate this movie, since on the surface it is a pretty straightforward story. Is there more to it than that? I couldn't tell.

Movie Review: Best In Show (Guest)

Everyone loves a good pseudo-documentary, right? Well, maybe not. But this is pretty funny. Lots of amusing characters, lots of funny sequences. Nothing too substantial, I guess, but it seems like a movie that must be incredibly fun to make. It is also nice knowing that it isn't real so you don't feel bad laughing at some of the craziness of the people on-screen. This dragged a little during a couple of scenes that went on too long, and a few of the characters were a little too much like caricatures. But I laughed a bunch of times. My favorite scene was probably actually one of the "deleted scenes" on the DVD where the bloodhound owner shows off his collection of beachballs. That is bizarrely funny, in that way that is overdone without really being overdone. What the Simpsons used to be, unlike the overdone bizarreness it is now.

Alien Abduction?

Oh wait, the missing hour is just Daylight Savings Time.

Should we fight the power?

Or should we be concerned that that site doesn't even mention the real reason that we have daylight savings is to save energy?

Movie Review: Panic Room (Fincher)

It had been a while since I had seen a suspense movie, and I like Jodie Foster, and this had gotten good reviews, so I thought why not try it. And it turned out to be about what I expected. A decent suspense movie, all set (except for brief scenes at the beginning and end) within a big, creepy house in Manhattan. It was all very standard setup - show us the house as they do a walk-through so we can get a feel for the layout that will become all-important in later scenes. Establish the basic character relationships as soon as possible - recently divorced but very protective mother, slightly rebellious teen, young hot-headed criminal, sympathetic criminal, mysterious but violent criminal. Nothing too new! The direction was all pretty reasonable, doing a fine job of letting us know where people are and what is going on at all times. Sometimes it might have been a little too clear - pointing out things the characters should have done when they had a chance. But that is part of the joy of suspense movies, right? Trying to figure out what you could have done better. I would be ok if people gave up using the "camera follows the path of something" shots, though - sometimes it was ok here, but it is really starting to be overdone. "Clever" camera work does not count as good camera work. The acting was all pretty decent, but I usually like Jodie Foster and Forest Whitaker (I'll try to ignore that whole Battlefield Earth thing). I thought Jared Leto did a surprisingly entertaining job in his role (which seemed to be a typical Jason Lee role) which makes me wonder, after Requiem for a Dream if he might be an OK actor. I don't think the daughter character was as well constructed as the other characters, since she really didn't have much to do and we never got a good feel for what was going on with her. Otherwise, though, it was a fine movie for what it was. Maybe not as thought-provoking or discussion-inducing as Fincher's other movies, but this is arguably a more solid effort.

Work, Work, Work

We're finishing up a development cycle at work, so time for putting good stuff here is hard to come by.

Why do I post this saying I don't have anything to say?

Shouldn't I be out whoring for links, not actively driving away potential readers with lame posts like this?

Shouldn't I just post a few gratuitous links to the daypop/blogdex popular items? Or pick a few of my own favorite blog posts from today?

Maybe.

But really, I'm just posting here for myself. I'd like to have time to break out things into more of a journal site and a more general-interest site, so I wouldn't feel bad about alienating one or the other kinds of readers. But I'm lazy, and have that job thing, so it all goes in the one big pile to be sorted out later.

And, like the James Kochalka diary, trying to post everyday may help reveal the patterns and cycles of everyday life. And some days are kind of boring, without excitement or profound thoughts. I wouldn't want to mislead anyone reading the archives to think lack of posting days are full of excitement and adventure.

Which I will be happy to share if it does happen someday.

Easter Bunny

The question came up today, and I guessed pretty much correctly. Like all good "christian" traditions, the Easter Bunny started out as a pagan fertility symbol. Even the name Easter probably comes from a pagan goddess. But we get to thank the Germans for the beginning of the bunny-shaped candy tradition. Ummm, thanks.

Today's Phrase

"Lack of motivation."

It could have been "meetings all day" but it wasn't.

April Fools

No April Fools Day jokes here, since no one reads this, but I actually did fall for the Pitchfork AFD joke (quoted in it's entirety since I don't think it'll have a permalink):

When I started Pitchfork in 1995, I was just a kid with an Internet connection and a dream. An obsessive indie rock nerd with only my passion for music and an unmitigated desire to be the center of attention. The extent of my experience: a collection of 450 CDs, an education-in-progress from the local college radio station KUOM, and a pile of Cake zines in the closet.

Which, when confronted by the reviews of Alanis Morissette, Kylie Minogue, and Jars of Clay, made me frightened for a moment until I realized it was still Monday. Which was an even better reaction than google's pigeon joke, which just made me smile.