3/16/00 - March Madness has begun, making it the only time of year that it's worth turning on CBS.
Elaine and I went to see Mission to Mars last night in the vain hope that somehow the sci-fi geek in me would love it despite the critics. Lord, was it awful. Laughably bad on many, many levels. It may even be worse than last year's "real space" stinker, Armageddon.
The ridiculous joke that was Filegate has finally, thankfully, been put to rest. Time for language snob William Safire, among others, to apologize to the Clintons and the American Public for perpetuating obviously overheated allegations for years on end. It's this type of smear job that makes it so hard to separate the scandal wheat from the chaff.
Meanwhile, the Congressional GOP are learning to be careful what you wish for, and campaign consultant Mike Murphy is bringing down my family name with his self-serving rewrite of the McCain defeat.
Lots of Ford Explorers with Virginia plates out there, but only one of 'em has the dog killer...
*******
3/15/00 - In one of his better columns, William Saletan of Slate examines how rising gas prices is becoming yet another rhetorical bludgeon with which the GOP can attack Al Gore.
Spielberg's on AI, a Stanley Kubrick holdover. I'm actually kinda glad he turned down Harry Potter for this project, cause I have a sickly feeling that under his tutelage Potter would have become too saccharine-sweet.
The NBA backed down on their plan to wire coaches during games. Perhaps Stern figured he'd lose a lawsuit.
In response to yesterday's quarter query, it turns out Medley and Breaching the Web also have the collecting bug. No sign of Maryland yet...
So I showed Elaine the Purina Pick a Dog Breed doodad (via Now This) and now she desperately wants a pup of our own. Unfortunately, we seem to have drastically different opinions on what constitutes a dog. I'm thinking catch frisbees and learn mad tricks, and she's thinking ball of fluff to lavish maternal instinct upon. We're working toward a compromise at the moment, and I'm starting to cave towards a bichon frise only because (a) they're smart, (b) they don't mind living in an apartment, and (c) I still feel bad for the one that got sent flying under a truck by that asshole in Cali. A Border Collie or Terrier of some sort might be good too. Ideally I'd like a retriever, but unfortunately we don't have much running-around space to offer large canines in our apartment.
Of course Rudy Giuliani can be pugnacious and irritating, and I have serious issues with his "Quality of Life" initiatives and his untarnished faith in the NYPD; nevertheless, to my mind, comparing the mayor to Hitler or David Duke is just plain hyperbolic and annoying. Why have we on the Left grown so accustomed to painting every Republican we disagree with - crazy fundamentalist and harmless moderate alike - as fascist Bogeymen? It's getting ridiculous. Hillary and Rudy share basically the same political stances, and Rudy is left of the Clintons on immigration and welfare reform, for Pete's sake. By all means, let's call him out for his iron-fisted tendencies, but let's at least drop the "Famous Bigots in World History" routine.
*******
3/14/00 - Is rave dead?
So I spent all of yesterday spring cleaning, and other than the huge cloud of dust still lingering in the air, it felt damn good. I have reclaimed areas of our apartment that haven't seen spic-and-span-ness in months. Moreover, cleaning up is one of my pre-writing binge rituals, so hopefully said tidying will result in many pages of publishable prose.
Taxi Drivers' brains...they just keep growing and growing...
In the NBA, the miking controversy continues. Also, MJ has finally come to terms with how bad the Wizards really are.
For the Love of Julie, an exercise in fictional stalking (courtesy of Creepysites and this CNN article.) And, speaking of creepy, check out these Stepford Kids in action against their teacher.
Sally's got the ten best new weblogs up, and while her column usually tends to be a total racket for the blogger cabal (by her own account Megnut barely posted last week and was still ranked #7), I do particularly like her #3 pick, Ooine. Then again, I'm always a sucker for the Star Wars angle.
Backup Brain has bird-dogged this great site, The Periodic Table of Comic Books, featuring those long-forgotten DC heroes, the Metal Men.
From Honeyguide, brand-spanking new pictures of Io and Europa, the latter being currently our solar system's best bet for alien life.
Slowly recovering from his tragic tape jackage, Phish (tale) discloses that the Maryland quarter (No. 7 of 50) is out. Are any other webloggers collecting these? Elaine even went so far as to buy me a infomercial map to keep them in, although we haven't heard hide nor hair about this map in weeks.
Check out The T'inator, or else. (via Yuppie Slayer.)
*******
3/13/00 - Boy, it sure seemed like a slow news weekend (and, no, I don't think it had all that much to do with SXSW.) Thus, I spent much of the past forty-eight hours in "meatspace" (a hilariously apt neologism I've stolen from Evhead.)
I didn't see any of the movies I spoke of last entry, but I did do our taxes (the only thing left to do is print and send), spent an afternoon with Elaine's great aunt, and played much basketball.
Speaking of which, I've printed out a bracket, but I'm not quite sure if or how many pools I'll partake in this year. I'm not much of a gambler, but I take exception for March Madness (although my predictions have become progressively worse as I've become more knowledgable about the teams.) In other hoops news, Knicks beat the Spurs in MSG...a few months late, but satisfying nonetheless.
Wetlog gets some love from Wired.
Because they're good, fattening, and fun to say, Utz.
The Tyrannosaurus gets bested. Now these puppies really sound scary, particularly the surgical jaws and the pack hunting.
Salon publishes another great article calling into question the premises behind American's expensive, dangerous, and irrational war on drugs, this one focusing on the success of the Dutch drug policy of "tolerance and ambiguity," a.k.a decriminalization and rehabilitation.
In one corner, Mr. Environment Al Gore and his father's main corporate benefactor, Occidental Petroleum. In the other, a 5000-member displaced Colombian tribe threatening mass suicide.
*******
3/10/00 - Hello there. I've been trying to make my peace with this Fortunate Son Election by burying myself in work. It's not helping much. I have found lots of intriguing research on the tax cut/corporate welfare issue at the Citizens for Tax Justice homepage, however.
The new Mission: Impossible 2 trailer is up on the web, although the download times were horrendous yesterday. After watching it, I've got mixed feelings about this one. I enjoy Woo, but Anthony Hopkins's one-liners are just too summer movie self-aware for my taste. Enough postmodern irony already.
Mission to Mars is getting panned, but I'll still probably end up seeing it by the end of the weekend. Gotta support the genre, after all (I still feel somewhat guilty for not seeing Supernova and Pitch Black, although only the latter of the two looks anywhere near enjoyable.) Elaine and I did see Wonder Boys last night. All in all, it was satisfactory, if uninvolving: the type of literary movie that should have stayed a book. We also caught Boiler Room last week, which I found very enjoyable and worthy of recommendation, despite the tacked-on father-son catharsis and the considerable plot holes at the film's conclusion.
In a desperate bid to increase my hits, I joined both the webloggers and linksluts webrings. Is that wrong?
*******
3/8/00 - Bush vs. Gore. Laugh about it, shout about it when you got to choose...anyway you look at it, you lose.
Bradley was blanked by Gore across the country, even in his home state of Missouri and his home-away-from-home state of New York. This telling fact, along with the defeat of co-insurgent John McCain, only underscores to me how grossly misplaced was my naive confidence in the intelligence of the American voter. My personal journey from freshfaced young idealist to bitter, misanthropic curmudgeon has made considerable progress today...suddenly Bill Maher seems much more prescient and much less cynical.
Some contemplative soul once wrote that America invariably ends up with the President we deserve. It seems that, despite the reform impulse that had been surging through the primary season, America still deserves a grimly uninspiring fortunate son of a President who will lie, distort, pander, and generally stop at nothing to win the Oval Office in order to finally escape from the haunting ghosts of his parents' ambition.
This whole Bush-Gore fiasco did put me in the exactly right mood to enjoy this, courtesy of Metafilter.
Seinfeld Studies 101? Also in Salon, an old college acquaintance -- the very hip-hop savvy Jon Caramanica -- eulogizes the JB's.
*******
3/6/00 - So yesterday I experienced one of life's little victories. The cornerstone of my Sunday afternoons is the New York Times, but unfortunately somebody's been stealing my paper about 30% of the time for the past year. Well, I finally hit my boiling point, so I stayed up late, got my paper directly from the paper guy as he drove through circa 5:30am, and replaced it on the ground with a dummy paper (the two-week-old headline read: "Bush wins SC", and the enclosed note read "Hey, asshole: Stop stealing my paper.") Then, I opened my blinds a crack and, guitar in hand, commenced a stake-out of the crime scene. Sure enough, around 7:45, one of the neighbors upstairs (and the last person I'd expect) came outside. Through the crack, I watched his flipflops stop by the paper, grab it, and then scurry back inside. A few minutes later, the chagrined culprit returned to put the dummy paper back. That's when I made my move. I can't remember the last time I caught somebody so completely red-handed. I almost felt bad for the guy when he tried to launch a feeble excuse, then angrily proclaimed, "I'm not an asshole!" and then quickly returned upstairs, sans the usual jacked paper.
Unfortunately, this paper I spent the morning trying to salvage included the NYT primary endorsement of Al Gore, which was the most self-serving, poorly written piece of tripe in the whole kaboodle. First, the paper wrote off its complete lack of Bradley coverage through the month of February by arguing Bradley "stumbled badly in regards to policy and performance." Then they claim that, while "overeagerness to please is a defect in Mr. Gore, Mr. Bradley possesses an even more disturbing inability to convey a real hunger for the opportunity to serve." What on Earth does this mean? Should Bradley have pleaded and cajoled like Al Gore the pander bear, or should he have merely served better hors d'oeuvres on the press plane? All these myriad Bradley obit pieces suddenly emanating from the press make me sick. They all ask, "Where did Bradley go wrong?," but few, if any, mention that the press was too lazy and enamored of John McCain to ever give post-New Hampshire Dollar Bill his due. I forgot the cardinal rule of today's media: Sometimes it takes a dead Kennedy or a blue dress to illustrate how pathetic our Fourth Estate has become.
That being said, Sunday's Boston Globe does carry an interesting article on the major presidential candidates ignoring any substantive talk on the drug war.
Est-ce-que vous avez recevez le courier electronique de la jeune pousse?
Knicks are slumping, which to my mind is the perfect way to avoid Vince Carter, Oak, and the Raptors in the first round. Better Mase and Eddie than the Revenge of the Mighty Oak.
*******
3/4/00 - The nastiest, most reprehensible episode of road rage I've heard about in some time. This guy needs a terminal dose of bad karma in the worst way.
Just when I thought my home state couldn't look any worse, the South Carolina GOP have blocked MLK Day, making us the only state in the Union that doesn't recognize the holiday (via Fark.) And to top it all off, we get this lady from Ladson who kept her dead roommate in the freezer for over a year. We're not all like this, I promise.
While exploring other blogs today, I discovered Phish (tale), the weblog of Jonathan Burr. As it happens to be a fellow NoVablog, I was curious to know how many others out there reside in and around the Washington DC area. Anyone else out there?
If you enjoyed yesterday's extended candidate-superhero metaphor, here's another, better written one pairing the Big Four with their mythological counterparts. Speaking of which, the picture on the left has more to do with yesterday's entry than today's, but I like it so much I had to put it somewhere.
It seems thespian seductress Angelina Jolie is close to signing on as Lara Croft for the long-rumored Tomb Raider film. Also, Marky-Mark Wahlberg will complete the trifecta of sidekick-to-George-Clooney films (Three Kings and The Perfect Storm) with the remake of the Rat Pack's Ocean's Eleven. At this point, the film will be directed by Steven Soderbergh and will also star Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.
Not much personal news here lately, because there really hasn't been anything to report. I've barely left the apartment all week, and have spent most of my down time either playing the guitar, shooting hoops, finishing up Sword Coast, or slogging through Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song. I'm definitely suffering from post-Bradley depression to some extent, and I'm really not looking forward to spending the next few months on a pro-Gore sequel to the last book project. I very much would like to freelance more, but since you're supposed to write about what you know and I've been spending most of my non-research hours sitting around my apartment surfing the web...do you ever get the sickly feeling that while your back was turned somebody boarded up the windows of opportunity? Aaargh. Enough whining. See you next time.
[Main Page][Contact Me][Archives][Other Weblogs][My Epinions/GitM][My Links][Bio][Bradley][Library]
Conjuring Up Cinematic, Political, Athletic, and Cultural Arcana Since The Final Moments of the Last Century
3/16/00 - March Madness has begun, making it the only time of year that it's worth turning on CBS.
Elaine and I went to see Mission to Mars last night in the vain hope that somehow the sci-fi geek in me would love it despite the critics. Lord, was it awful. Laughably bad on many, many levels. It may even be worse than last year's "real space" stinker, Armageddon.
The ridiculous joke that was Filegate has finally, thankfully, been put to rest. Time for language snob William Safire, among others, to apologize to the Clintons and the American Public for perpetuating obviously overheated allegations for years on end. It's this type of smear job that makes it so hard to separate the scandal wheat from the chaff.
Meanwhile, the Congressional GOP are learning to be careful what you wish for, and campaign consultant Mike Murphy is bringing down my family name with his self-serving rewrite of the McCain defeat.
Lots of Ford Explorers with Virginia plates out there, but only one of 'em has the dog killer...
3/4/00 - The nastiest, most reprehensible episode of road rage I've heard about in some time. This guy needs a terminal dose of bad karma in the worst way.
Just when I thought my home state couldn't look any worse, the South Carolina GOP have blocked MLK Day, making us the only state in the Union that doesn't recognize the holiday (via Fark.) And to top it all off, we get this lady from Ladson who kept her dead roommate in the freezer for over a year. We're not all like this, I promise.
While exploring other blogs today, I discovered Phish (tale), the weblog of Jonathan Burr. As it happens to be a fellow NoVablog, I was curious to know how many others out there reside in and around the Washington DC area. Anyone else out there?
If you enjoyed yesterday's extended candidate-superhero metaphor, here's another, better written one pairing the Big Four with their mythological counterparts. Speaking of which, the picture on the left has more to do with yesterday's entry than today's, but I like it so much I had to put it somewhere.
It seems thespian seductress Angelina Jolie is close to signing on as Lara Croft for the long-rumored Tomb Raider film. Also, Marky-Mark Wahlberg will complete the trifecta of sidekick-to-George-Clooney films (Three Kings and The Perfect Storm) with the remake of the Rat Pack's Ocean's Eleven. At this point, the film will be directed by Steven Soderbergh and will also star Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.
Not much personal news here lately, because there really hasn't been anything to report. I've barely left the apartment all week, and have spent most of my down time either playing the guitar, shooting hoops, finishing up Sword Coast, or slogging through Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song. I'm definitely suffering from post-Bradley depression to some extent, and I'm really not looking forward to spending the next few months on a pro-Gore sequel to the last book project. I very much would like to freelance more, but since you're supposed to write about what you know and I've been spending most of my non-research hours sitting around my apartment surfing the web...do you ever get the sickly feeling that while your back was turned somebody boarded up the windows of opportunity? Aaargh. Enough whining. See you next time.