3/27/00 - I came across another D.C. area blog - Apt. #820. With Phish and Ratbastard that makes three others I know about. Anyone out there I'm missing?
Two finds from Zannah: the Gallery of Huge Beings - They're looking for submissions, so if you have any ridiculously large roadside attractions near you, send 'em along - and Star Wars Origami, which speaks for itself. While most of us either concentrate on first-person narratives or interblog each other to death, Usr/Bin/Girl is always scrounging up interesting new links. You go, Zannah.
Pith and Jish move, and Phish (tale), Hit-or-Miss, and Medley have all unleashed spiffy new looks. Medley pays homage to her cat, Matt finds beauty in simplicity, and Phish goes for the Air treatment. All of 'em look great, although IMHO Mr. Kingston could use just a tad more color (I do like the target, tho.)
The Perils of Weblogging (and Web Journals.)
K.E.V.I.N.: Kinetic Electronic Violence and Infiltration Neohuman.
M.U.R.P.H.Y.: Mechanical Unit Responsible for Peacekeeping and Hazardous Yardwork (Thanks Apathy and Apropos of Nothing.)
Well, the Oscars were last night and criticsseemed tohate it. Having nothing but low expectations, I thought it was decently entertaining, although I was mildly perturbed by Angelina Jolie's viscerally non-platonic love for her bro.
I don't think, however that having American Beauty win five of the main awards is anything close to a good representation of the last year in film. No love for Malkovich, Three Kings, or Fight Club? Kevin Spacey wins a best actor for basically playing himself, while Denzel Washington gets left out in the cold after losing forty pounds, learning how to box, and putting a movie-redeeming performance as the Hurricane? Would The Cider House Rules even have been nominated for anything this year, were it not for the studio equivalent of the blogger cabal, Miramax? In recognition of the past year's unusually good crop, I don't think any film should have won more than two or three awards.
The silver side of the lining is that The Matrix won four awards (A wake-up call to Lucas, perhaps?) and the ridiculously overrated (and overlong) Magnolia won nada. I know the movie is beloved to many bloggers, and I must admit the acting was universally good - perhaps Tom Cruise even deserved the Oscar. But the screenplay...ugh. Watching Magnolia reminded me of reading an unpublished novel by a marginally talented and terminally egotistical high school sophomore. The characterizations were dense and unrealistic, every scene was three-five minutes too long (most notably the quiz show part in the middle hour), and the ending felt like a tacked-on amphibius ex machina. Pretentious and overblown - P.T. Anderson may be the only filmmaker in Hollywood who needs a screenwriter-editor more than George Lucas.
And speaking of which, Sith Witch rumors are flying again. I don't know what's scarier: the picture to the left or the rumor that Jar Jar Binks will have a love interest named Meesa.
The trailer for Gladiator, starring last night's grim-faced Russell Crowe, is now online. Directed by Ridley Scott, this potential summer blockbuster also features Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, and the late Oliver Reed. And, if you're not afraid of subliminal images, the trailer for John Travolta's Scientology epic Battlefield Earth is also up.
Twenty-eight years after Bloody Sunday, an inquiry finally begins. The massacre of fourteen Catholics that day by British troops effectively ended the Irish peaceful protest movement and fomented the violence that has plagued Northern Ireland ever since.
More trouble for NASA: The warranty of the space station equipment in orbit is about to expire.
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3/24/00 - At NASA, when it rains, it pours. (Thanks, Kestrel.)
Bird on a Wire found these and I gotta say, as an amateur hip-hop aficionado, these right-wing rhymes stink. "Liberal choke hold, behold, dependent on our votes, Dem Hos. Wanna See us fail, oh no. Affirmative Action, a joke." Not exactly the Tribe or the Meth, is it? To quote Phife on Phony Rappers, "Hey, Quence, move over, your rhyme style is older than a Chrysler Cordoba."
My sister is in town this week dancing at the Kennedy Center, so most of the past 36 hours have been spent cleaning the apartment for the rest of the immediate family to come visit for the weekend. I will show you fear in a handful of dust..., or an apartment-full, at any rate.
It's Star Wars, Dude! Infectious animation.
While doing research for the agitprop book, I encountered the Bush Stump Speech Search Engine, which will tell you how many times Dubya has recalled his notecards on a given issue (Unfortunately, it being a DNC project, you cannot also find out how many times Al Gore has uttered "risky tax scheme," "$150 a month voucher," and "no controlling legal authority.")
In other work-related news, my boss finally has his own website, although honestly it ain't much to write home about.
3/22/00 - As I write this, I am listening to The Virgin Suicides soundtrack by the French duo Air (whose Moon Safari, in my humble opinion, was one of the top five albums of 1998). The soundtrack's very moody and atmospheric fusion of 70's pop and acid jazz has my interest piqued for the forthcoming film, due out April 21.
Strange news afoot in the world of entertainment: Detective Briscoe goes after Ebay, MTV funnyman Tom Green does indeed seem to be suffering from testicular cancer (despite the "boy who cried wolf" treatment from fans and blogs alike), and Goldie Hawn lobbies to ban circus elephants, citing their need for "family relationships, privacy, mental stimulation, physical exercise, and emotional outlets."
Retired General Colin Powell has announced his candidacy for Secretary of State (or perhaps Secretary of Defense.)
Turn it off! For the love of God, turn it off! Toronto police are using the Backstreet Boys as a form of torture. (Insert extremely off-color and tasteless Louima joke here.)
Sandra Bullock as Wonder Woman? Warner Bros. seems poised to royally screw up another beloved DC franchise. Why cast the poor woman's Julia Roberts when you could have Linda Fiorentino, Angelina Jolie, or Catherine Zeta-Jones?
Hmmm...apparently NASA knew in advance that the Mars Polar Lander was fubar. How's this for management? "As explained privately to UPI, the Mars Polar Lander vehicle's braking thrusters had failed acceptance testing during its construction. But rather than begin an expensive and time-consuming redesign, an unnamed space official simply altered the conditions of the testing until the engine passed." Sounds like grist for the mill for Privatization advocates.
I'm all for progress, but no no no no no. MSG is one of the Big Apple's premier landmarks, for Pete's sake.
The South Park/Oscar controversy has been sorted out, and it now looks as if Robin Williams will be singing "Blame Canada" next Sunday.
Duchovny on The X-Files of late: "Have you seen the show the last two weeks? Man, we should stop. They're getting pretty bad sometimes. It's getting a little thin…" Ouch.
In the spirit of Springtime cocoon emergence, Apropos of Nothing points out this Activity Calorie Calculator. Also, Eleven Seconds, fresh off a GitM-like redesign, discovers the mystery of suggestive soda-dispensers.
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3/21/00 - From Zannah, the Web Economy Bullshit Generator. Frighteningly on point. And, speaking of frightening, Now What? has found this article on parrot intelligence that suggests that, not only are these birds possibly the intellectual equivalent of a six-year-old, but they're also getting really freaking sick of the crackers.
So, as you can see, I've been trying to change up the look around here. At first I really liked the new header - I tried to go for that time-lapse "catch-the-ghost-on-film" look - but now it occurs to me that it may be a little too Megnut.
While perusing the web for update ideas, I did unearth some interesting "photographs" of ghostly apparitions. Skeptics may perhaps prefer How to Create Fake Photos of Ghosts. During the course of my travels, I also uncovered Scary Squirrel World, the "voice of the anti-squirrel coalition."
The Village Voice explores the racial profiling clothing cues for the NYPD (see right), and delves into a horrific night four black Ivy Leaguers experienced at the hands of New York's Finest. As a former Internal Affairs investigator notes, "When you run a department only to drive up arrest stats, there have to be victims."
Elaine's interest was piqued by the comments of liberal Bishop John Shelby Spong on Politically Incorrect, and, lo and behold, he's got an unofficial fan site.
Madonna and Child, redux, and the millennial ironies are disconcerting. We already know Papa don't Preach. If the Material Girl is still Like a Virgin, then what rough beast, its hour come 'round at last, slouches toward London to Express Itself?
The The's Matt Johnson has released his US tour dates, and he's coming to DC May 29! (I had felt so left out by the Kids in the Hall.) I'm still settling into the new album - it's a little more metal than I expected - but, having seen Mr. Johnson twice before, I gotta say he puts on a damn good show regardless.
Details goes under.
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3/20/00 - Oops...I was playing with a redesign from 8 to 9pm ET, and the site was down. Sorry!
Other than the Knicks choking to the Lakers early on, yesterday might have been the perfect Sunday. Three hours of playground hoops, the Sunday New York Times from start to finish (and I completed the crossword!), a satisfying Thai dinner in Old Town, and a reasonably entertaining Cancer Man X-Files. Folks, it doesn't get any better than this.
Well, now that I think about it a little more carefully, there was a slightly irritating episode over dinner. At the Thai restaurant, Elaine and I were wedged between two other tables - the two guys on my right were military types talking about NASA the whole time (hey, that's cool by me.) The affluent middle-aged couple on my left, however, were just plain aggravating. Some friend of theirs spotted them across the restaurant and came over to say hello, and one way or another they got on the subject of the Internet. At which point the woman in the couple declares loudly, "The Internet is stupid and overrated. It's absolutely useless!" Their friend seemed as puzzled as I, and queried how she could make such a sweeping statement. She continued, "There's nothing of interest to be found on the Internet. And it's useless! You can never find what you want. If I were to do a search for Aztecs, for example, the only that ever comes up is Amazon.com!" Then the husband pipes in, "Yeah! For example, I wanted to see what they had about Chet Baker, and nothing came up except a bunch of people named Baker who live around the country! The new guy tried to explain to them how a search engine works, but both of them just continued to get more uppity about what a useless tool the Internet is.
Look, I've got no problem with folks who don't know how to use the web. So be it. But I do have a problem with folks emphatically deriding the Information Superhighway because they're ignorant, particularly if I'm forced to listen to it while enjoying some chicken satay. I wanted to run home, print out the search results for "Aztecs" and "Chet Baker," and get back to dinner with the words, "Here...now please SHUT UP." Where's Alvy Singer and Marshall McLuhan when you need them?
Iridium flames out (courtesy of Ooine)...what a waste. I'm sure they could have found some use for those 66 satellites.
James Fallows has an interesting piece in the NYT magazine about the new economy's reaction to persistent poverty. Another article in the same mag profiles Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich.
The Cow is Dead. Long Live the Cow.
McCain makes nice.
Phish (tale) point outs this Post story delving into the gym teacher vs. the Stepford kids episode alluded to last week.
The new update of Weblogs.Com seems to want me to pare down the weblog list to a group of favorites. More useful, perhaps, but where's the fun in that?
By the way, I've got a question for y'all: how do you feel about the black background here? Is it too distracting and/or hard to read? Thanks.
Mission to Mars may have plumbed new depths of dumb, but that doesn't make the CNN story on the proposed Mars oxygen generator any less exciting.
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3/18/00 - Sorry there was no update yesterday, but I didn't want anything to detract from my day long honoring of my ancestral heritage through severe inebriation. I cut my knee playing basketball this morning and I was almost surprised I didn't see Guinness pouring out from the wound.
Elaine and I just got back from Erin Brockovich, which was well-done and entertaining if a bit overlong and predictable. Better than Mission to Mars, at any rate.
Fortunately, I only filled out a NCAA tournament bracket for bragging rights -- not for money -- this year, as I had Maryland and Arizona in the Elite Eight and St. Johns in the Final Four. It got ugly out West.
Dumbmonkey sent along a nice letter of encouragement. Thanks, man.
Speaking of dumb monkeys, the Washington Post have unearthed Al Gore's grades at Harvard, and they're pretty bad. Basically, he - like his much-maligned opponent - was a C student in high school and college who probably wouldn't have gotten into Harvard without the family name. He also recorded a D, in a sophomore class entitled "Man's Place in Nature(!)." Now, as a former Harvard student who also spent ridiculous amounts of time in the Dunster basement (and I didn't even live there), I gotta say, the rule about it being pretty hard to make an A and pretty hard to make a C was, in anything other than high-level science and engineering courses, basically true. One could argue that grades are more inflated now than they were in Al Gore's day, but that doesn't hold any water with me. The reason there are more A's and B's given at Harvard now than before has to do with a more talented and industrious pool of students these days (and less well-connected prepsters a la Gore.)
At any rate, the Gore grades story reminds me of an Office of the Vice-President Christmas Party I attended a few months ago. I went, Bradley pin in hand, to fertilize dissent within the ranks, but as it turned out, the folks I ended up talking to - low-level staffers who work with the guy every day - already thought he was a condescending prick. No man is a hero to his valet, true, but one comment stuck with me. One aide said, "Gore's the most dangerous type of person in the world: a guy who thinks he knows much more than he actually does."
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Conjuring Up Cinematic, Political, Athletic, and Cultural Arcana Since The Final Moments of the Last Century
3/23/00 - Backup Brain notes this Salon article about the Criterion Collection. The jewel of my own DVD collection is the 3-disc Criterion cut of Terry Gilliam's forgotten classic, Brazil.
From Memepool, Save Our Satellites!, an attempt to stop Iridium from felling their 66 satellites as a tax write-off and use them instead as "the world's first orbiting OpenSource public network." Heck, they should be used for something.
Should Oscar make a new category for Animated Feature-Length Film? I'd take Toy Story 2 and The Iron Giant over The Cider House Rules and The Green Mile anyday.
A question about the Maryland hostage situation. If he was drugged by his captives and "dozing", why then did the police need to shoot and kill him? "Furtive gesture," my ass.
Dan Quayle does banking. Now I know where not to keep my money.
Blast from the Past: KJ returns to the Suns to spell them after Jason Kidd's broken ankle.
Woody Harrelson loses one in the battle for industrial hemp. I wonder why he chose Kentucky, of all places, as his battleground.
Breaching the Web and Bird on a Wire point to What-a-Character, a site showcasing character actors. I'm going to have to browse through and cull a few links for my Icons list.
3/22/00 - As I write this, I am listening to The Virgin Suicides soundtrack by the French duo Air (whose Moon Safari, in my humble opinion, was one of the top five albums of 1998). The soundtrack's very moody and atmospheric fusion of 70's pop and acid jazz has my interest piqued for the forthcoming film, due out April 21.
Strange news afoot in the world of entertainment: Detective Briscoe goes after Ebay, MTV funnyman Tom Green does indeed seem to be suffering from testicular cancer (despite the "boy who cried wolf" treatment from fans and blogs alike), and Goldie Hawn lobbies to ban circus elephants, citing their need for "family relationships, privacy, mental stimulation, physical exercise, and emotional outlets."
Retired General Colin Powell has announced his candidacy for Secretary of State (or perhaps Secretary of Defense.)
Turn it off! For the love of God, turn it off! Toronto police are using the Backstreet Boys as a form of torture. (Insert extremely off-color and tasteless Louima joke here.)
Sandra Bullock as Wonder Woman? Warner Bros. seems poised to royally screw up another beloved DC franchise. Why cast the poor woman's Julia Roberts when you could have Linda Fiorentino, Angelina Jolie, or Catherine Zeta-Jones?
Hmmm...apparently NASA knew in advance that the Mars Polar Lander was fubar. How's this for management? "As explained privately to UPI, the Mars Polar Lander vehicle's braking thrusters had failed acceptance testing during its construction. But rather than begin an expensive and time-consuming redesign, an unnamed space official simply altered the conditions of the testing until the engine passed." Sounds like grist for the mill for Privatization advocates.
I'm all for progress, but no no no no no. MSG is one of the Big Apple's premier landmarks, for Pete's sake.
The South Park/Oscar controversy has been sorted out, and it now looks as if Robin Williams will be singing "Blame Canada" next Sunday.
Duchovny on The X-Files of late: "Have you seen the show the last two weeks? Man, we should stop. They're getting pretty bad sometimes. It's getting a little thin…" Ouch.
In the spirit of Springtime cocoon emergence, Apropos of Nothing points out this Activity Calorie Calculator. Also, Eleven Seconds, fresh off a GitM-like redesign, discovers the mystery of suggestive soda-dispensers.