Saturday, December 30, 2000

Huskies Victorious,

The UCONN women took care of Tennessee this afternoon in Hartford, cementing their hold on the #1 ranking. Nice to see: despite blizzard conditions in Hartford, the Hartford Civic Center was packed.

Wednesday, December 27, 2000

The Butler Did It

Caron Butler had a triple double in UCONN's victory over Rhode Island last night. Last time a UCONN player had a triple double was 1994.

Friday, December 22, 2000

Cluttered Lives

Good news, reports of Cluttered's demise were premature. P.J.'ll be back doing his thing in January.

Thursday, December 21, 2000

Boneyard Brilliance

I don't think we do a good enough job of publicizing Mark's "Boneyard" pieces, of which we have a new installment tonight. Hop over there and read the new one. When you're done there, treat yourself to a little trip through the archives. It's all good stuff. Here's a little snippet from the most recent piece, "Hail to the Thief!":
Has anybody else noticed that the 2000 election resembles a strange sort of affirmative action for the Bush clan? The Supreme Court steps in and declares how harmful it would be for poor little ol' Bush to go through a recount. This will forever be known - to me anyway - as the "give the baby his bottle" decision. The Bush clan seems to squeak through life with a certain "close enough" rule.

Tuesday, December 19, 2000

Link Enhanced Flavor

Flavor Flav the flav of all flavors
Onion an garlic french friend potatas
Make ya breath stink, breath fire
Makes any onion da best crier

Top Ten

The best Late Show Top Ten list about the election. My fave: 8. If you keep saying, "I'm the President," eventually people start to believe you.

Waggle Dance

The next time (not soon, I hope) I need to find an apartment, I will use "waggle dance" technology in my search.

Gains and Losses

Sometimes those stock options are not all they're cracked up to be.

Michael Moore Weighs In (Not A Fat Joke)

More than a little biased, perhaps, but still a properly sardonic commentary on the Supreme Court's decision from MichaelMoore.com. (Better late than never.)

Life After The White House

Clinton pitching an interview show to NBC?

Monday, December 18, 2000

Kung Fu Madness

Right now I'm listening to Deathcab for Cutie and liking it much. Also, as Fei-Hung, I have just attained my yellow belt. (kung fu courtesy usr/bin/girl)

Friday, December 15, 2000

My Top 6 Books Read in 2000



6. Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe. A soldier in ancient Greece is wounded in battle and loses his memory each night; however, he gains the ability to see and communicate with the gods and goddesses. The end is a bit of a formulaic letdown, but on the whole Wolfe avoids the pitfalls of genre fiction.
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. Juvenile fiction that reminded me how much I enjoyed the Susan Cooper books I read when I was in Rowling's target demographic. I wish this weren't being made into a movie for the same reason Bone Daddy didn't want a LOTR movie, kids are better off reading it than having stamped onto their imaginations in pre-digested form.
4. American Tabloid by James Ellroy. L.A. Confidential also bears mention.
3. The Tetherballs of Bougainville by Mark Leyner. You know what you're getting with Leyner.
2. Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball by Bob Costas. Lucid presentation of proposals to prevent the self-destruction of major league ball. Costas for Commish!
1. The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by Howard C. Cutler and H.H. the Dalai Lama. The others on this list are better written in terms of prose style; I'll forget the lapses in style in time, not the arguments the Dalai Lama makes for compassion.

Thursday, December 14, 2000

Fair Pay

A take on A-Rod's contract that makes the argument for athelete's being "worth" what they're paid. I don't know why all the talk of the recent contracts being the death knell of baseball rubs me the wrong way. It may be true. I think it's the idea that the money is A-Rod's fault. I wish more people who wrote and talked about baseball looked at the big picture, of which this article is one part. Costas for commish.

You're Going To Get What You Deserve

Last night's speeches struck me odd. Gore seemed drunk. Like he was about to bust out laughing. "You suckers are gonna get what you deserve!" Bush was just his usual smug, two-faced self. I wanted ralph as he, of all people, talked about common sense and civility. His speech would have been fine if he had meant even one single word of it. Boy, he had NBC's Russert snowed though. Ol' Tim (sans his election night whiteboard) was impressed by the Shrub's sincerity. I want to play poker with Russert so my progeny can go to college on his dime. And how about Brokaw summing up the Shrub's business career like he's some sort of business genius who decided to go into politics to do some good. Funny how Brokaw failed the mention the track record of the businesses with which he was involved ... and his insider trading. There goes that "liberal media" again.

Wednesday, December 13, 2000

My Top 5 Movies of 2000

(updated 12/14/00)

I only saw 22 movies in the theaters this year, but I figure most if not all of the movies I didn't see were crap. I haven't looked at any film top this or that lists, so my judgement hasn't been swayed by critical opinion. It actually wasn't hard to narrow the list down to five either; this was a bad year for film. In fact, one of my Top 5 is a foreign movie that's several years old, but only got released here this year. And so, with minimal commentary, here they are:

5. "Shanghai Noon" Starring: Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. Just a decent little comedy with people kicking each other. Jackie and Lucy Liu will both be on this list again. Beats out "Small Time Crooks," "Keeping the Faith," "Nurse Betty," and "Best in Show" which were also passable-to-above-average comedies. It just wasn't a strong year.

4. "Charlie's Angels" Starring: Crispin Glover, Cameron Diaz, & Lucy Liu. Yeah, I left out Drew Barrymore on account of I can't stand her. Sure, Yuen Woo Ping rehashed his "Matrix" effects to further prove he can make anybody look like they can fight, but redundant Yuen Woo Ping is still better than the incompetent crap that passed for action in "Gladiator."

3.5 "Ghost Dog" Starring: Forrest Whittaker. Forrest is the Toshiro Mifune of our generation.

3.25 "High Fidelity" Starring: John Cusak, Jack Black. I forgot that I saw "Ghost Dog" and this one this year, hence their hasty insertion into the middle of this post.


3. "Drunken Master" Starring: Jackie Chan, Ti Lung, & Anita Mui. Actually the best movie released this year, but since it's actually like 7 years old, I'm going to let the 1 & 2 slots go to new movies.

2. "The Way of the Gun" Starring: Benicio Del Toro, some other guy, and James Caan. I'm an action movie guy. This is an action movie guy's action movie. If you didn't like it, it's because your panties were too tight.

1. "The Tao of Steve" Starring: Some fatty who's slimmed down and has a sitcom coming to Fox. The closest thing to a "Swingers" to be released this year.

There it is. C-Dog's Top 5. I didn't see "Angela's Ashes" or "Billy Elliott" (I'm not holding my breath either) and I'm still waiting for "CT,HD" which H.D. is seeing tonight, to make it to the sticks. I'm perfectly willing to admit there may have been better movies released this year, but I bet not by much if at all. Honorable mentions? "X-Men" ... uh ... "Unbreakable" ... "Romeo Must Die." I'm tapped. Ooh, almost forgot "The Girl on the Bridge," which was actually pretty darn good only it's French -- and the French, to paraphrase a recent editorial comment in "The Economist," are morons* and can't make my list. Almost as bad as Canadians, they are.

* The comment was actually along the lines of how the French should devote more of their newspaper ink to Silicon Valley and less to Palm Beach so that "they might learn something useful."

I Want My CTHD

I'll be more guarded in my optimism regarding Chris ("The Usual Suspects" & "Way of the Gun") McQuarrie's "Alexander the Great" than I was for Besson's "The Messenger." I've been thinking about a possible Top 5 movie list for 2K and I'm pretty sure "WotG" would be on it. I'd like to see "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" first ... if it would ever open outside NYC!!

Dark Times Ahead

Gore has decided to concede -- technically he's 'ending his campaign' without actually conceding defeat. He'll speak at 9pm E tonight. This is the dawning of the Age of the Shrub.

Every Vote Counts

Jesse Jackson is given to hyperbole, but I was not aware of the specifics of his allegations about deliberate attempts to keep blacks from voting in some Florida counties. Who's the Texan Mrs. Harris who he claims turned away 8000 black voters for bogus reasons? Again, it's hard to take everything Jackson says at face value, but are legitimate concerns being swept aside in all the talk about dimpled chads?

Reasonable?

I followed a link from usr/bin/girl to Reason magazine. I'll see if the articles are as well written as billed, but I'm discouraged by the list of folks that have good things to say about it: Dick Armey (see "jigger of cat piss" below), Rush, G. Gordon, and Steve Forbes in particular. Zannah excluded, of course.

Molly At Salon

A good introduction to Molly Ivins at Salon.com. I just noticed she's no longer listed on Drudge. What's up with that?

Tuesday, December 12, 2000

We Should Be Better At This By Now

The sorry state of ballot counting in the US. An LA Times article. Among it's interesting points: Alaska has more registered voters than voting age citizens, and this bit -- "Indiana, which encourages voting with sign-ups by mail and at driver's license bureaus, has jammed its registration lists with hundreds of thousands of people who should not be on them. They include felons, the dead and many who have registered repeatedly." Our balloting system, if you can call it that, is a joke.

Sunday, December 10, 2000

Clobberin' Time

The Huskies were like the The Thing this weekend; it was clobberin' time!

-The men's b-ball squad took care of #5 Arizona before a raucous crowd at Gampel, 71-69. What a fun game to watch, though CBS took their sweet-ass time about it when the Illini went to OT against the Hall. I know, the refs blew the goaltending call, but still, it would've gone to OT and nobody but nobody was gonna stop Johnnie Selvie! That kid was awesome. I posted earlier a lament about how it seemed unlikely the Huskies would have a Ray Allen/Rip Hamilton type this year ... it turns out they may have to superstars in Selvie and Caron Butler.

-The women got Geno his 400th victory today by stomping the Lady Illini. They are so, so good it's frightening ... and they are playing without a center! When Schumacher comes back their average margin of victory should increase from 30+ to 40+ points per game.

-I don't care much about soccer. Who does? But, as long as I'm celebrating the blue and white, the men's soccer team took the national title today.

Friday, December 8, 2000

Like Lots Of Things

"... We got ideas, to us that's dear / like capitalist, like communist ...": Chimpanzee politics. (an old article, found recently at Robot Wisdom) (I'd been looking for a way to incorporate something pixie-ish into a post since the referral logs started showing a bunch of hits by folks looking for info about a spoiler for a certain movie that makes use of a great old song ... that I could do so in post about chimpanzees makes it all the sweeter!)

Curses

That "Cursed" show on NBC ... that is one bad, bad show. I can't believe I watched the whole thing. That's one half-hour of my life that is gone forever and it may be the single most tragically wasted half-hour of all my years.

Thursday, December 7, 2000

Cluttered

Darnit! He was one of the good guys on the "blog scene."

Modest Mouse

Speaking of new albums, the new Modest Mouse has been on continuous play since I started studying this morning and while I can't say it's had my full attention, I haven't had the inclination to turn it off or skip any songs yet. Loving the bitter sense of humor so far ...
"We're goin' down the road towards tiny cities made of ashes / I'm gonna hit you on the face, I'm gonna punch you in your glasses ..."

The Fall

The new Fall album almost snuck by me. Picked it up last night when I happened upon it at my local Newbury Comics. No chance to give it a full listen yet, but the bits I heard sounded decent-ish. Frankly, some Fall songs are just hard to listen to, and this album includes some of the typical atonal free-verse pieces that might be interesting to hear once, but generally aren't what you'd throw on to give yourself a good groove first thing in the morning when you're trying to get pumped up for the new day. Fortunately, the more rockin' songs sound good, so my preliminary judgment is in favor of the album ... though I'm going to bitterly resent it when the domestic release comes out with more tracks than the import I paid out my arse sideways for.

Crouching Tiger

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" opens tomorrow!

Tuesday, December 5, 2000

A Note From A Reader

The following is an e-mail I received from one of our readers who challenged my "stones." As he suggests, I am passing on his thoughts. He didn't indicate whether he wanted his name attached, so I will append his email under the name "Al." Thanks for writing "Al."

All right, enough of this communist manifesto. Seems that you & your other running dog lackeys have nothing better to do than to rip into poor dubyuh. Your post on Triptych Cryptic refers to the following: "Man, we're not going to have any readers left if the rest of the collective doesn't start posting about something interesting ..." Time to get a clue HuskieFan...it's not the lack of collective posting but rather the lack of impartiality. Oh sure, I see where you & your ilk are pissed off that dubyuh may be the next person in charge but think of it another way - do you really see where there will be a noticeable difference if we have one person as president over another? Personally, I don't care who it the next prez - after all, with the Senate & House pretty much 50/50 and as close as the race was neither one will have a mandate to do much of anything anyway.

Now, as far as the vote counting is concerned...correct me if I'm wrong, but Gore is only going after the votes in those counties where he thinks the count will lean towards him (primarily democratic counties). If he's so concerned that the vote was accurate, why not have a recount in all counties in Florida? [Gore, I recall, did suggest this and Dubya came out against the idea. -- c-dog] For that matter, why not a recount in all counties in the US? Sure, he won the general election by 200,000 votes but when you consider 2.1 million votes were declared ineligible for one reason or another, then the popular vote could swing dubyuh's way also.

The thing that chaffs me the most is what the election has all come down to -- 7 figure lawyers telling us who should be President & why. The people that started building bomb shelters, stockpiling food & ammo and declaring the world was coming to an end last year with Y2K had the right idea - they were only off by a year.

So Chris, if you've got the stones go ahead & post this to Triptych Cryptic. In fact, if you're looking for more viewer interchange since you don't have the 'chat room' perhaps you might want to interject this in a future posting.

Friday, December 1, 2000

Coach on Coaching

Calhoun on coaching at ESPN's Page 2.

Bennett Out At UW

I'm a little behind the curve, but I just saw where Dick Bennett stepped down the other day from the UW basketball coaching job due to exhaustion. I'm not a fan of Big 10 basketball in general, or Wisconsin basketball in particular, but getting that team to the Final Four last year (was it last year, jimminee they are flying by, aren't they?) was an amazing accompishment. More than any other team, it was (though Badger fans may be loathe to concede it) coaching that got them that far. They hardly had a team you would call "exciting," or "atheletic," or "good." Sure they didn't "shoot well," or "score much," or "look pretty," or "generate excitement," or "bathe regularly," but somehow ... in defiance of all reason, they made it to the Final Four.

Monkey News

If monkeys are in the news, for any reason, I'm all over it ...

Thursday, November 30, 2000

Beliefs Of The Presidents

Interesting reading for election season: the religous beliefs of the Presidents. (via TU) I didn't know we had a Quaker, Hoover, or that only one was Congregationalist, Coolidge -- I don't know why I thought there would've been more (or why it would matter at all to anyone), just because I think of Congregationalists being concentrated in New England and down the Atlantic coast (I don't know if that is or ever was true) and because there would be a disproportionate number of President's from that 'hotbed' of Congregationalism, I guess.

Man, we're not going to have any readers left if the rest of the collective doesn't start posting about something interesting ...

Oh, by the way, Mega bought a car yesterday. A 2000 Accord. Be sure and ask him about the "puck" in the trunk. I think we can convince him to try to exchange it. This is the guy who won't buy a box of cereal unless the packaging is in pristine condition, never touched by human hands.

Wednesday, November 29, 2000

Do We Really Need The Electoral College?

Is a government policy or institution racist if it is designed to give one part of the population an advantage over another when the part of the country given the advantage is primarily white and the disadvanted part is largely non-white? If it were, I'm wondering if that wouldn't be an argument to do away with the electoral college, which seems to give more weight to the vote of rural voters than urban voters? I looked around online for articles about discriminatory lending policies that I thought might apply, but didn't have any luck. I found a bunch of stuff about apportionment -- a whole 'nother can of worms, but not much that seemed relevant. Finally, I did find case law (Gray v. Sanders) which addresses Georgia's version of the electoral college, the county unit system, for primary elections. Part of the decision reads:

In other words, the District Court did not proceed on the basis that in a statewide election every qualified person was entitled to one vote and that all weighted voting was outlawed. Rather, it allowed a county unit system to be used in weighting the votes if the system showed no greater disparity against a county than exists against any State in the conduct of national elections. [emphasis mine] ... We agree with the District Court that the action of this party in the conduct of its primary constitutes state action within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I know we live in a republic and that institutions like the electoral college (and the senate, which also gives states disproportionate representation) have been around since day one, but still ... doesn't it just seem wrong? The Senate is balanced by the House, but in electing a President, what balances the disproportionate representation of the smaller midwestern states?

Hopefully, after suffering under 4 dismal years of the Shrub's reign, something'll change.

Tuesday, November 28, 2000

Count Them All

A David Alterman article that sums up my personal reaction to the election mess. Gore would be the winner if all the votes were counted, and all the votes actually counted, but Bush is in a position to steal the election with the complicity of the newsmedia.

Friday, November 24, 2000

Play Ollie

One UCONN player I'd like to see do well in the NBA is Kevin Ollie, who once again seems to have only a tenuous hold on a roster spot, this year it's with the Nets. I saw Kevin play for the Mav's in a preseason game against the Bucks before last season and he looked great. I'm sure he was working 10 times harder than anyone else that night trying to make the team, for all the good it did him (he eventually wound up on the bench in Philly, I think).

Rip It Up

Continuing to track UCONN players in the NBA: Rip Hamilton is getting some attention at THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE WASHINGTON WIZARDS. Averaging over 12 points a game (woo-hoo!) and handing out turkeys to the underpriviliged -- who are mysteriously referred to as the "underserved" in the article. I notice Rip is hitting treys at a .400 clip -- not too shabby -- and he's been the high scorer for the team 3 times. Still, the Wizards, like the Bulls are a crap team and he's not likely to get much, if any, national TV time, so odds are I won't get to see him play.

Khalid In The NBA

Cruising around checking out how former UCONN players are doing in the NBA, I see Khalid El-Amin hasn't scored in double digits very often (3 times in 12 games) and has been cold from the field recently. Not exactly setting the league on fire. I wasn't able to find anything written about him at the Sun-Times, they must not give to much ink to bench/role players. Elton Brand looks like the only bright spot on a pretty awful team. In Brand and Pfizer they have some good forwards going into the future, but without a center to anchor that frontcourt, they are pathetic. Too bad Voskuhl's hurt, heh.

Bushisms

J.R., this one's for you: Bushisms.

X-Men Easter Egg

X-Men DVD Easter Egg: Spider Man cameo. Instructions for how to get at it are in the review Comments section.

UCONN v. Duke (Replay)

TV pick of the night: UCONN v. Duke 1999 NCAA final is on ESPN Classic at 9pm. My vote for best college b-ball game ever played. It was supposed to be the Duke Invitational, nobody was going to challenge them. The whole time UCONN held the number 1 spot during the season, there was griping in the media about how Duke was the better team. Supposedly, nobody had an answer for Elton Brand. It turned out nobody had an answer for Ricky Moore (in the first half) or Rip Hamilton (in the second).

It was too ironic that I met a girl out at the bar watching UCONN beat Gonzaga (I was the only UCONN fan there, she was a friend of the only Gonzaga fan there) who was a huge Duke fan. Despite that, we got on pretty well and she ended up coming over to watch the final game. I don't think I was rude that night (though I did site the Rod Sellers elbow to Laettner's head as one of the greatest moments in sports history), but we never went out again ... Duke fans are so thin-skinned (and stupid). Additional evidence, I was pretty loaded that night at Damon's that night and my 'line' (if you can call it a 'line' when you use it loudly and on everyone you meet) was: "Lookit my ass! Look at it, dammit!!!" (I was wearing a UCONN warmup shirt with "UCONN" in big letters across my butt.

Wednesday, November 22, 2000

Turkeys

ESPN.com's Turkeys of theYear. Rocker heads up the list, but I would've gone with the US men's 4x100 relay team, who made #2 on the list. Rocker made an jerk of himself on the US baseball stage, the relay team utilized the world stage for their antics.

Tuesday, November 21, 2000

Not Even For Tom

Saw a preview for the D&D movie -- forget what I said earlier, it looks like crap on a stick. I'll pass.

Hope For Gore?

Get ready for the Republican moaning and groaning to reach a crescendo. The Fla. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of allowing the vote counting to continue. Based on what's been reported (and we all know how reliable that can be) Gore's gaining ground and may take the lead.

Four The Elf

Looking for a reason to see the critically drubbed "Dungeons & Dragons" when it comes out? Tom Baker (the fourth Doctor) as the Elf King is reason enough for me.

Monday, November 20, 2000

Can Caron Rip It Like Rip?

Kiss that #12 ranking good-bye: UConn lost to Dayton, 80-66. Calhoun says: "With Caron and Souleymane we might have only lost by eight or 10." I hate to say it, but this has all the earmarks of a rebuilding year: no starpower with Khalid gone and no indication Mouring is going to step up to be a leader on the team. They'll win when Ajou Deng and Souleymane are hot and we'll just have to wait and see if Caron Butler can fill the Rip Hamilton/Ray Allen role.

Thursday, November 16, 2000

Husky News Source

McD's UConn Huskies Hoops News: College basketball is gearing up. I'm sure most of you have this bookmarked by now, but I thought I post it just in case ...

Election 2000

Speaking of robotic feces hurling simians, do we know which guy is our next president yet?

Monkey-Controlled Robots

I wasn't excited about this article when I saw the headline at the Drudge Report, but when I actually went to it and saw that it was monkey brain waves (!) controlling the robot ... well then I knew that science was finally doing something productive. Imagine the possibilities of monkey-controlled giant robots ...

Instead of paying attention in class, I'm thinking of a scenario:

Scientist -- "Organic monkeys are not bad at throwing their feces, but really ... why settle for relatively small, inaccurately thrown feces balls when we could have giant robotic monkeys hurling giant robot feces with the force of a cannon and the precision of Pedro Martinez?"

Gov't Official -- "You're mad! Mad, I say. How can you be sure you'll keep control of the monkey robots?"

Scientist -- "We can't be sure, or even realistically expect it, but the march of progress demands we ignore the peril and complete the process just because we can. Bring me Koko the Gorilla and fire up the Robototron 2000 ..."

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

ProjectCensored.org

ProjectCensored.org: exploring and publicizing the extent of censorship in the corporate media. Their resource guide is a good list of alternative media.

Not Nader's Fault

An article by Doug Ireland (not from Salon.com, anticipating Eleni's concern) arguing Nader shouldn't be blamed for Gore's loss. A complement to the most recent Boneyard article.

Excelsior

The Official Excelsior Campaign Website: George Takei needs work. (link courtesy Mark V.)

Tuesday, November 14, 2000

I've Been Warned About D'Souza

Sci Fi Wire -- Buffy Reveals Spike's Origins: decent way to spend a rainy Tuesday night.


p.s. Thanks for the alerts on that Dinesh guy, I should've known better than to take a book review in the WSJ at face value.

WSJ Reading Reco

Note to self: add to reading list "The Virtue of Prosperity" by Dinesh D'Souza.

Monday, November 13, 2000

In What Alternate Universe Does George Will Live?

George Will is certifiably insane. In what world did he live in where there was a "powerful media bias" for Gore? The media did everything it could to prop up the Bush campaign which, by the way, should have toppled under the weight of his scandalous background and mind-boggling stupidity.

Wednesday, November 8, 2000

Way To Go, Dead Guy!

Not to be disrespectful, but when a dead guy wins an election ... what do they do? Stick a battery up his ass and put some extra makeup on him before he makes an appearance? Or is it like one of those Weekend at Bernie's movies where his aides prop him up, wave his arms for him, etc.? Say, if a dead guy ran for president and won the electoral college vote, would he still be entitled to secret service protection?

Electoral College, Can We Do Away With It Yet?

Will Gore declare open season on the Electoral College system if he loses despite the popular vote?

Tuesday, November 7, 2000

Monday, November 6, 2000

Quick Hitter Reviews

Quick hitter reviews -- The Simpson's: bad. (Halloween ep. was good though.) Charlie's Angels: good. Forgetting basic rules of grammar like when to use "who" vs. "whom": bad.

Blinkered Vision

The Economist is endorsing the Shrub. They believe he's less likely to become protectionist in the event of an economic downturn. That's an awfully narrow focus to take when determining whom to endorse.

Wednesday, November 1, 2000

Chicken Entrails And Such

An article about those "quirky" non-poll based election predictors. They're split on Bush v. Gore: the direction of the market favors Gore, the Redskins home loss to the Titans points to Bush.

Yo La Tengo Coming

Check it out kids: Yo La Tengo will be in the area soon! (The area being Providence.) That Dec 1 date at Lupo's is looking pretty good.

Gore 1, Bush 0

I know the polls are tight, but I'm standing by my prediction -- Gore will win. If the polls are correct and the race is really as tight as it appears (and I think the margin of error is inflating Bush's numbers), I think the Nader vote is going to evaporate on election day when the fear of a Bush planet seizes his supporters and Gore will inherit their votes. That's my hunch.

Sunday, October 29, 2000

Missing Jai-Alai

I miss Berenson's. Milford is pretty far and the closest thing Rhode Islanders have is a casino in Newport that shows simulcasts of jai-alai action from Florida and Milford.

Saturday, October 28, 2000

Dance With The One That Brung You

Salon.com Politics | Unsafe in any state: revisiting the argument that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. It's still crap. If Gore wants those votes, maybe he should figure out why Nader is getting them to begin with. I don't want to see Bush appoint another Scalia or Thomas to the Supreme Court; however, I think it's worse in the long run to argue that our country doesn't need a change from the two-party system, that a third party is a waste of time, that a Bush or a Gore is the best we can hope for ... let's face it, sacrificing Nader on Gore's altar just sets the stage for doing the same thing every four years ad infinitum. The Republican candidate is always going to be crypto-fascist bullethead and it's never going to be "safe" to vote for a true progressive. If we get Bush as a result, then we get what we deserved and maybe Alec Baldwin will get the last laugh as he jets off to Paris.

What's In Your 401(k), Glass House Dweller

Salon.com Politics | Inside Nader's stock portfolio: Does it really make sense to slam Nader for owning shares of Magellan? For one, mutual funds change positions all the time. Magellan may own Occidental Petroleum one day and not the next. For another, I'm not entirely convinced it's hypocritical to own stock in a company you criticize. People who own stock in a company get to vote at shareholder meetings and can influence the direction of a company. Plus, by accepting dividends, an opponent of a company's strategy can argue they are using the company's profits against them. (Yeah, so these are somewhat specious arguments, still ... c'mon, is anyone seriously arguing that Gore or Bush are less beholden to corporate interests?)

Wednesday, October 25, 2000

Improved Casting

This would have been so much cooler if it had been "Mr. T and the Women."

"That crazy foo' Murdoch drugged me and threw me on a plane! I'll kill the foo'! What's with all you women and y'r jibba-jabba? Foo'!"

Freakshow

More about the Attleboro Cult and leader Roland Robidoux.

Nearby Cult

About a local group of religous nutjobs: Attleboro Cult. Mega and I ride up to Attleboro on Tuesdays to go to the Newbury comics in the mall. They've been in the news lately (the cult, not Newbury Comics) as dead kids have started turning up.

Lesser Of Two

I'm still not paying much attention to the World Series, but I have decided which team I want to lose more ... the Yanks. It was tough because of the Sox history with the Mets, but these Mets aren't the '86 Mets and the Yankees are still the Yankees. Despise them both, but my dislike for the Yanks is more deeply held and enduring. Never thought I'd say it ... go Mets.

Sunday, October 22, 2000

Drunken Master

Almost forgot to mention: seeing "Drunken Master" on the big screen was awesome! What a great movie. The theater I saw it in Friday night (Providence Place Mall) didn't sell out ... what a shame. I hope word of mouth helps bring more people out to see it. The crowd I saw it with was vocal in their delight.

Beautiful Country

These last couple days have been the kind that make people name autumn their favorite season. The leaves are turning and dropping. The air is cool and dry. I've been driving back forth on the Mass Pike and Route 6 between Hartford and Providence and, not to wax New England-o-philic, it's beautiful country around here.

Thursday, October 19, 2000

And That's A Good Thing

Latest addiction: Red Bull. Tastes like crunched up Flintstones vitamins injected into a vat of dissolved Super Keep You Up All Night Truck Driver Caffeine pills.

Wednesday, October 18, 2000

Lonely Planet Boy

Lonely Planet Boy review. Mike's the guy that runs the fantasy football league I'm currently getting slaughtered in. Now he's like a famous musician.

Doing It Wrong

Peter over at I Shoot With My Mind seems to have met a chiquita in Beantown. Hmmm. There's a Starbucks right across the street from the World Trade Center where I'm at all day. I must be doing something wrong.

Cinerama

By the way, the new Cinerama album is quite good.

Tuesday, October 17, 2000

Calexico Thanks To Magnet

I don't listen much to the radio for music. DJs drive me insane with their idiotic jibba-jabba and the music sucks. (Occasionally, way over at the left of the dial, I can tune in something decent for a while, but those stations fuzz out everytime I drive more than 10 miles in any one direction.) So, when I wanted to get some new albums to listen to in the car, I started flipping through the mags at Borders and Magnet Magazine caught my eye. (The Steve Earle cover currently displayed wouldn't have done it, last issue was Ween with Billy Bragg, the Mekons, Wire, Sonic Youth, Modest Mouse, and Belle & Sebastian in big print.) The Calexico album I picked up based on the review turned out to be really good.

Thursday, October 12, 2000

People Are Dirtbags

Speaking of the curse, somebody crunched my door in the parking garage yesterday. Didn't leave a note. Man, that burns me.

Tuesday, October 10, 2000

Run Down

In a more perfect world, when I sit down to write a blog post on minimal sleep, a coffee-fueled caffeine jag, and with the lingering sharp pains and dull aches that result from a 2 hour bus trip, the result would be some kind of Kerouac-ian beat poetic blurb about something relevant. Instead though, I can barely remember by the end of a sentence what I started out trying to say way back at the beginning. Something about the different way you perceive the world when your basic sustenance is Pemmican jerky scraps washed down with Red Bull soda maybe? What's been going on in the world while I've been stumbling from bed to bus to job to bus to bed? Debates: too tired to watch 'em. TV show premieres: ditto. Playoffs: I flip blearily between ESPN and Bloomberg from 5:45am to 6:00am -- the damn yanks advanced and NASDAQ is declining, the world's going to hell. I can't sleep on the bus, so I try to read instead. I'm hip deep in Crowley's Little, Big. It's OK, but I'm looking forward to a new book when I'm done with it. Music: been listening to Calexico's new album and like it a lot. Also, the new Knopfler -- getting Van Morrison to sing with him was a good idea ... James Taylor though was not. What else? Umm, moving into the new apartment, finally, this weekend. Once in, I can go back to getting decent sleep and start doing something calisthenic in the morning. The only exercise I get now is trying to find room for my legs when the guy in front of me on the bus reclines his seat. If my heart rate goes over 40bpm, it's only because when I slip into a half-waking dreamstate I think I'm running late and need to run after the bus or face the prosepect of driving through the Big Dig to try to find the office.

Friday, September 29, 2000

Procrastinating

I really don't feel like packing. It's just about time to break down the pc and get it into boxes. I can put it off a little longer though. I'm thinking about going to a matinee of Remember the Titans and packing later.

Lithuania, So Close

Ah Lithuania, you were so close. An airball 3-pointer with time running out. That would've been the greatest Olympic upset since ... since ... Rulon Gardner!

Thursday, September 28, 2000

Doctor Who Coming to DVD

Doctor Who DVD news. Warner Bros. is apparently planning to release a Doctor Who title for Christmas 2001. What are they waiting for?

Knopfler

It's probably tragically un-hip to get all psyched-up when Mark Knopfler is on Letterman, but there you have it. Last night I flipped to Letterman, which I've watched twice in the last year, just in time to see Knopfler doing a song from his new album. Knopfler has aged. He looks Tommy Lasorda these days. He still plays the same though. Nothing revelatory about his guitar work, just the same old great sound. There are guest turns on the new album by Van Morrison, Difford and Tillbrook (Squeeze), and ... James, erm, Taylor. Like I said, tragically un-hip.

Wednesday, September 27, 2000

Shelving

There's a scene in High Fidelity where Rob explains his autobiographical record cataloguing system to Dick and Dick groks what an undertaking that is. It's a funny scene. I've never shelved my books alphabetically, there's always a system or a couple of systems at work that make perfect sense to me, but would make it difficult for anyone else to find a particular book in my collection. For instance, if I want to find Crowley's Little, Big, I know that I have to go the shelf for "sci-fi/fantasy books of marginal interest I bought prior to 1995, didn't get to, or, started to read and didn't get far enough into to that I felt like had to finish right away, so I put them aside for something more interesting and haven't gotten around to but think I probably will when I'm in a budgetarily enforced book buying lull and don't feel like re-reading a classic." Finding I used the receipt as a bookmark (page 45, I must've started it right away and only put a half hour or so into it) is kind of neat on the personal/archeological level. I know now I was in Boston on January 18, 1992 at 5pm in a bookstore on Newbury St. Now that I've finally read Sterling's Heavy Weather I can move it from it's old spot next to Crowley and put it with the the Gibson and Attanasio books in "overrated author/sci-fi" in the "signed/hardcover" subsection. This'll be a lot easier when everything I own isn't in boxes.

So Wrong

Attack monkeys.

Jigglypuff

Poké-Friends. Great concept for a blog. The first link posted by Jigglypuff on 9/27 is to a hilarious message board string. Bulbasaur's keen intellect and deft hand at satire really come through in his writing. (found via TU)

I Want Ping Pong Damnit!

I was able to find out at NBC's Olympics site that Kong Linghui of China won the individual Table Tennis gold, but I can't for the life of me figure out when or if any of the table tennis matches will be shown on tv here in the U.S. I can watch two guys kneeling in canoes. I wish NBC didn't have the sole rights to Olympic coverage. It would have been so much better for us if all the networks had been able to have some coverage. Stupid NBC. Guys kneeling in canoes indeed.

Memory Aid

Saturday Morning TV Schedules of the 70s. Flashback to: the floating island in the background of every scene of Tarzan swinging through the trees bugging the heck out of me. No matter where he went in the jungle, he was always swinging across that thing.

Tuesday, September 26, 2000

Mix Tape Mastery

Mo makes one hell of a mix tape.

Get Back To Me When You Carry Your Own Bag, Douche

Reading a little more about the Casey Martin case at CNNSI.com the argument advanced by Martin's attorney cites "a provision of the ADA that bans discrimination on the basis of disability 'in the full enjoyment of ... facilities ... of any place of public accommodation.' The law's definition of public accommodation includes recreational places such as golf courses." I don't think this is a strong argument. The PGA isn't saying Martin can't use a golf cart to play golf anywhere at any time, just not in the course of one of their events. I'm more certain now that Martin will lose. It's a shame. It doesn't hurt the game to have him play with a cart. I'm not denying that walking the course isn't part of the competition, it'll tire out big fat guys. It's not like it's that hard though. These guys aren't carrying their own bags. I get exhausted playing 18 holes, but I carry my bag and it's full of beer and ice and it's heavy! Wusses, pro golfers are wusses.

MNF

The Annotated Dennis Miller is back with a new installment. My favorite Miller moment last night was when, late in the game, he was alerted to an upcoming booth shot and had to hastily re-knot his tie and try to tuck in his shirt: "It's late for a booth shot! I was almost in my footsie jammies."

Is There A Pro Golfer With An Ounce Of Class?

The Supreme Court will hear the PGA's case to prevent Casey Martin from using a cart on the tour. Casey had previously sued under the Americans With Disabilities Act to be able to use a cart due to a degenerative condition in legs/hips. I have to think Martin will lose the case. I may be misreading the law, but it seems like the PGA is more a private club as described in section 307 than an employer with regard to golfers on tour. Personally, I'd like to see the PGA grant Martin an exception due to the nature of his condition. I don't think allowing him to use a cart gives him an unsportsmanlike advantage over the other golfers. Martin will, if his condition does not put him in a wheelchair, be able to play on the Senior tour where the golfers are allowed to use carts. It's not like an adverse ruling would necessarily keep him out of golf forever. I think it would be a classy thing for a guy like Tiger, Els, or Duval to speak up for Martin though. I remember seeing Martin at the GHO in Cromwell this summer and I really felt for him. It was obviously causing him a great deal of pain just to walk the short distance from the cart path to the tee box. I find it hard to believe the guys who play on tour with him feel like he has an unfair advantage over them. If they do, they're a bunch of wusses.

Olympic Disgrace

Lots of fawning over Vince Carter for jumping over a (crouching) 7 footer to dunk on him. Yeah, that's great, but you know what? I'm not going to watch a bunch of millionaires pump their fists and dance around after they beat up on the Lithuanian National Team. Play the anthem, wrap them in flags, shoot them in soft focus and they're still NBA players playing in a CBA-caliber tournament. Ringers. To the extent I'm watching the Olympics, I'm pulling for the American atheletes -- with the exception of the basketball team. I hope they lose. I like both Vin Baker and Ray Allen. If this were 1992, I would be cheering for them to bring home a medal. They don't belong in Sydney.

Monday, September 25, 2000

Heinlein-Induced Solipsistic Tendencies

Continuing in my defense, I read a lot of Heinlein when I was younger. Actually, all of it up to and including Grumbles from the Grave, though none of the posthumous stuff since. Read Time Enough For Love and To Sail Beyond the Sunset when you're just a kid and there's no end to the weird ass stuff you'll think makes perfect sense.

eBay Rookie

It's been almost five minutes and I've got no bids yet. ~stomps foot petulantly~ Stupid internet.

Ready To Rumble

FOXSports.com - NBA - Report: Celtics' Pierce stabbed outside nightclub: If I were a pro athelete (I hear your chuckling, quit it) ... anyways, if I were, I think I'd stay away from nightclubs. They're nothing but trouble for these guys. Ah heck, who'm I kidding? If I were a pro athelete, I'd be at nightclubs every night counting on my entourage of coke snorting bodyguards to watch my back while Keyshawn and I picked fights with guys we're pretty sure we could beat the crap out of, like Wayne Chrebet.

Friday, September 22, 2000

CT History

Today In History for Friday, Sept. 22.

The History Channel also has a Today in History page at their website. At a similar site, Connecticut's most famous revolutionary war figure, Nathan Hale, gets a little more of a write up.

Thursday, September 21, 2000

NY Film Fest

The Films of the 38th New York Film Festival: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon plays on the closing night, a Monday. Bummer. There's a new Takeshi Kitano film playing there ... and a new Wong Kar Wai. Great festival.

Ping Pong

Chicago PING PONG 2000: Other cities should learn from Chicago's fine example. Providence, take note.

[Update 8/31/2015: link is dead. Unable to locate a cached version.]


HOF Online

The Baseball Hall of Fame. A little spartan, but still an interesting site for reading about the games' greats. Some online exhibits.

Wednesday, September 20, 2000

Satellite Imagery

I'm using this satellite site to try and get a look into Fenway Park.

[Update 8/31/2015: Link is dead. Google Maps and Earth have taken over this space.]


Tuesday, September 19, 2000

Wave Motion

Star Blazers / Space Cruiser Yamato: Wave Motion Web Page

It doesn't look like there have been any updates to the page since I first found it via IGN.com two years ago but I still get a nostalgia kick out of visiting it every so often. I remember thinking the show was so cool when I was a kid. I used to get up at 6:00am to watch it before school. Then, I made the mistake of renting a few tapes after first finding the site. They were pretty bad. Kinda spoiled the memory.

Managers

What's the boss doing when not in a meeting or giving you grief? Apparently, downloading porn. (via Dack.com)

Dude, Release The Hounds!

Off the Reuters wire: Energy Secretary Says Oil Prices 'Dangerously High'. For some reason, when I first read the headline I thought it said, "Energy Secretary 'Dangerously High'." I thought the article was going to be about how the Energy Secretary (turns out his name is Bill Richardson) had been found in a janitor's closet down the hall from his office furiously taking hits off a 4-foot bong. I expected to see a quote from an under-secretary along the lines of "the President asked for a recommendation with regard to releasing some of the Strategic Reserves and Richardson was like, 'Dude, release the hounds!' He was really stoned." The article, of course, has nothing of the sort; however, I'm sure it's very important.

Miller Time

My favorite recurring article series: Week 3 of the Annotated Dennis Miller at Britannica.com.

Fun With The Referral Log

Gotta love the referral log: TC came up on the 41st page of results for "gay gundam sex pictures" at Google. Somebody was sure was looking hard.

Strategery!

The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide. (submitted by Prime Time)

Sunday, September 17, 2000

Actually, Ex-Patriating Is Probably The Only Reasonable Course Of Action

J'etait Barney F*ckin' Rubble.  Comprenez-vous?Baldwins Will Leave if Bush Wins: The anti-Baldwin jokes would be easy to make here, but I liked Miami Blues and Glengarry Glen Ross so I'm going to go easy on Alec. I don't see little brother Stephen though pulling off the hepcat expatriate act sitting at some Parisian cafe, a heavily underlined reading copy of "The Sun Also Rises" in front of him (grease-spot stained from the croissant detritus shooting out his mouth as he chews open-mouthed) trying to explain to a disinterested waitress that he played Barney Rubble in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" in broken French.

Friday, September 15, 2000

Hate My Job Movies (Maybe Less Obvious)

My top four slightly-less-than obvious "I hate my job" movies, plus Office Space:

(1) Brazil

(2) Being John Malkovich

(3) Local Hero

(4) Fight Club

+ Office Space

Thursday, September 14, 2000

Pulling A Costanza?

Wow. Tomorrow's my last day at the old firm. Still haven't gotten the call from the (hopefully) new firm. I'm going to. Eventually. It's just ... until I do ... man, I hope I didn't pull a Costanza.

Sorkin Series

Peter at I Shoot With My Mind makes a good point about the chief flaw with Sports Night being the relationship trap. Still, they were working around that towards the end with the new source of tension being the impending sale of CSN. If Sorkin did realize the mating dances weren't what the show needed, that could have been easily fixed. They did a great job with episodes about hunting/guns, the after-effects of their boss's stroke, debating whether or not to sell-out their journalistic principles in order to interview Jordan, etc. They had a great knack for pointing out how sports can be used to frame discussions about more important topics. That show should have lived long enough to get through it's early missteps. There's just something about The West Wing that I don't like as much, an off-key vibe that I didn't get from SN. Part of the problem is certainly Rob Lowe. The guy gives me the creeps. There's something smug and disingenuous about his acting style that makes me think he's still videotaping sexcapades with high school girls, but is taking more precautions these days. It worked for him in Tommy Boy, where he did a nice job hosing off a mud-covered, flashdancing Chris Farley, but I can't take him as a "good guy" in TWW's neo-Camelot. My take on TWW is based on only two viewings, so I don't have a lot to go on, but I got a sense the creators were looking to tap into something Kennedy-esque to make a point about where politics should be vs. where it is. That strikes me as either naive or cynical. We don't need more Kennedys, we need more Naders. I did like the writing and the interplay between the characters, it was like a slightly watered-down version of the more stylized dialogue in SN. I'm sure that with the new season starting soon, I'll start watching it. I just hope isn't slotted against the new Oliver Platt series or Gideon's Crossing, which both look promising.

Mr. Knight's Attitude

To Bobby Knight's, err, I mean Mr. Knight's credit, he did one thing right in addressing the students at IU last night. He asked them not to blame the freshman who addressed him as "Knight" for his being fired. He was a lot classier addressing the students than he was in the Schapp interview the other day. Still, it's funny how his trouble is all the university's fault in his mind. For such a controlling person, he doesn't seem to want to accept any responsibility for his own behavior

Wednesday, September 13, 2000

Danelope

Lots of links, including this little peach, Cranial.com - Will Hertes Prank Letters, at Danelope.

Fanboy

I'm such a fanboy. Just sent fanmail to Laurel because, among other things, she listed Sports Night (I don't care what anyone says, the West Wing is not as good) as one of her favorite tv shows.

Haikus and how they happened

First, random tune popped to mind ("Cosi Cosa" from, I think, "A Night at the Opera") which made me think of the irony of Ophrah Winfrey naming her production company after Harpo --

Assimilated
 via palindrome, Harpo
 now means "blah, blah, blah."


Then, as long as I'd already fallen into the haiku trap (probably Firda's fault), I figured I'd comment on Beat Takeshi's "Fireworks (Hana-Bi)."

Satori on film:
 Beat Takeshi Kitano's
 tranquil Hana-Bi.


Finally, once you've written a haiku or two, particularly if it's the first time since 3rd grade, you make meaningless observations, like:

Yellow sticky pads
 are great for writing haiku
 to take home from work.


Oop, lunchtime ... gotta go.

Tuesday, September 12, 2000

Buzz on CTHD

Some more good buzz for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at AICN.

Monday, September 11, 2000

Jet Pack Boy

Oh man, I am so gonna get one of these: SoloTrek Exo-Skeletor Flying Vehicle by Millennium Jet Inc. I just hope when these hit the market I don't live in an area with a lot of power lines. (via InformationUltra)

Sunday, September 10, 2000

Miller MNF

Britannica.com is doing a public service for all the MNF viewers who think the Tigres and Euphrates are names of NFL Europe teams; they're providing an annotated guide to Dennis Miller's game commentary. (found via allaboutgeorge)

Fresh, Not Rotten!

Frankly, I'm surprised. The tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes on Way of the Gun is coming up "rotten." It really is a good movie. Seriously.

Not To Nitpick, But ...

It's spelled d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y. There's no "a" in it.

I'm not perfect and I'm not judging. This is just one of the most common spelling mistakes I see otherwise capable writers making in their blogs. Here's a short list of frequently botched words that includes "definite" & "recommend."

But ... I'm An Atheist!

Take this test to help identify the organized religion closest to your belief system. (Via TU) I scored: Theravada Buddhist - 100, Universalist Unitarian - 93, Mahayana Buddhist - 85, Liberal Quaker -- 77.

Saturday, September 9, 2000

Way of the Gun & Nurse Betty

"Way of the Gun" is a great action movie that reminded me, in parts, of "Blood Simple", "Red Rock West", and "L.A. Confidential" (this is more of a stretch, but I thought it had Ellroy-esque dialogue at times and a similar degree of complexity in plotting). Tentatively, I'm calling it the best movie I've seen this year.

"Nurse Betty" didn't do quite as much for me. Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman did a great job, but I was surprised how mainstreamy it was. I went in thinking the previews had been deliberately slanted to make it look like a feel-good romantic comedy to trick folks into going who would've stayed away in droves if it had been publicized as a movie by the guy who made "In the Company of Men." Turns out, it actually was (for the most part) a feel-good romantic comedy. Edgier than other Kinnear movies, "Sabrina" for instance, but nowhere near as dark as I'd expected. Chris Rock was hilarious though.

Friday, September 8, 2000

That Was Awful

*thinking positive thoughts for Bryce Florie*

Clementine

Since Bone Daddy wrote that bit about singing to his daughter, we've gotten about two hits a day from Google by people looking up lyrics for that "My Darling Clementine" song. Is there really that much burning curiosity about the lyrics to "Clementine"? Are people bursting out in song at their local pubs, getting through the first verse, coming to a mumbling halt, then running home to look the lyrics up online? I figured we'd be getting tons of hits from people looking for pictures of Anna Kournikova, or Jennifer Lopez's rack, or El Guapo's midriff -- not that we've got any of that stuff -- but I'm sure they've been mentioned in passing at some point. Go figure.

Jackie!

(1) Read in the USA Today this morning that Drunken Master 2 is going to be released theatrically in the US on October 20th as Legend of the Drunkenmaster.

(2) Also read about a $3 CD of guys like Steve Earle and Dan (Georgia Satellites) Baird doing covers of banned music at FreedomSings.org.

Thursday, September 7, 2000

Not The Eye!

Gross story, but true: I was out mowing the lawn last night and a bug flew in my eye. It was irritating as hell, but I couldn't get the thing out. After finishing the lawn, I didn't notice it anymore and forgot about it. This morning at work both my eyes were itchy and irritated like they are everyday on account of all the dusty old files piled around my desk. I'm talking to Carolyn and rubbing my eyes and suddenly she says, "what the hell just floated across your eye?" She grabs my head and starts looking around my eye. Nothing there though. I figure she's overworked and seeing things. About an hour later, I'm rubbing my eyes and when I pull my hand away from my left eye, there's something dark on my hand. Closer look: dead bug. Damn thing had been floating around in my eye all night and half the morning. I'm eye squeamish, always have been ... can't even put drops in my eyes. That almost made me throw up.

Tuesday, September 5, 2000

Sports Talk

Salon.com: 3 yards and a cloud of baloney. An article about how vapid most commentator-speak is. Posting this by way of supporting the idea of Dennis Miller on MNF, one less ex-coach brainwashed into blathering the same old cliches. Problem with the article: Myth 1 debunked is "defense wins games"; then, in debunking Myth 4 " ... the Bucs got into the playoffs on the strength of their defense ..."

Sunday, September 3, 2000

Harsh!

Zoiks, now I feel really bad. My comments on SurvivorBlog got posted over there. (I called it "lame.") The thing is though, I look around at our amateurish layout, grammatical and spelling errors, and feel more than a little insecure about what I do here. Now, I feel mean for dogging another site which, by the way, has a much nicer layout than our's and feel like I should try to qualify my comments a little bit. When I looked over there, all I read were posts about other posts and the few links I followed were boring. (Boring to me, I should probably say.) Based on the posts I read, it seemed like the format was limiting the posts to self-referential blah, blah, blah-ing. I'm sure the bloggers over there are intelligent, good-hearted people who deserve better than to have their work called "lame."

Saturday, September 2, 2000

UCONN Football Playing With The Big Boys Now

Well, there isn't a box score at ESPN yet to link to, but UConn just wrapped up their first game as a 1A football team. 21 point underdogs to Eastern Michigan, they lost 32-25 in a game that they very well could have won. A few key errors (a penalty on fourth down play, a fumbled punt return, and a late interception) ruined their chances, but those kinds of mistakes are, hopefully, the kind of thing good coaching will cut down on over the course of the season. The good news was they didn't appear overmatched. Sure, EMU is a MAC team, hardly one of your powerhouse conferences, but Toledo humiliated Penn State tonight and Western Michigan gave #5 Wisconsin (will the Shoebox be their downfall?) a run for their money. Huskies showed promise tonight: QB Ryan Tracey threw for 340 yards and 3 TDs, the INT was a killer, but he could be decent QB. Bad news: they rushed for 62 yards on 25 carries for a 2.5 yard/carry average against a Terwilliger Q. Pantywaist-type defense. (I have no idea what that means either, it was just the feyest name I could think of on the spur of the moment.)

SurvivorBlog Weak

Someone asked if our friendship could survive a SurvivorBlog format. I'm sure we could, but I'm not sure TC would. SurvivorBlog is lame. It wasn't really a good idea for a tv show, the evidence indicates it's not so good an idea for a website either.

Thursday, August 31, 2000

Must See CTHD

I almost forgot to mention, the other day when I saw "The Tao of Steve," I also saw a trailer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the new Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh film by Ang Lee. It looked fantastic.

Another Big Brother Post (What Is Wrong With Me?)

The Revenge Of the Nice People: You read it at Triptych Cryptic first though (yesterday around 10:30am). TC is one step ahead of the infotainment press! (I knew I could reach my full potential if I stopped going to work.) Next Big Brother headline: "Brittany's Gone, Already Low Ratings Plummet Further." My prediction: the last episode of the show will be Curtis and Cassandra playing chess.

Here endeth the lesson

I take it McEnroe's comments are by way of a reply to the WNBA's "We're Better Than You" campaign. I don't know if that's really the case, but I hope it's something other than jealousy over the fact that women's tennis is more popular than men's at the moment. Is he trying to provoke another Riggs v. King match between himself and Serena? Women's sports always get dogged for being inferior to men's. I don't get it. Sure, men and women are different, it's hardly an earth-shattering bit of news. Is that a reason though to dismiss women's sports? People write these elegiac odes to sports and go on about the will to win, the dedication to excellence, the discipline to train, the honor of taking one for the team, performing under pressure, refusing to lose, ad nauseum ... all the things that are supposed to make sports about more than just playing a game for money. Is McEnroe implying that these qualities are unique to men? Despite the WNBA's slogan, I don't think anyone is saying we should watch women's sports because the female athletes are as strong or fast as male athletes. It bothers me to keep hearing claptrap like McEnroe's and all the fat-assed guys who call in to sports talk shows to argue that they could beat Cynthia Cooper at one-on-one or wipe the court with Venus Williams. Dismissing the female athlete's training, dedication, and achievements is like saying that one half of humanity is excluded from being representative of the qualities we admire in athletes. It's bigoted and mean-spirited. Am I getting preachy? I must be. I just heard Sean Connery's voice from the Untouchables in my head: "Here endeth the lesson." That's how I'm going to end all my morally outraged posts from now on. Here endeth the lesson.

Tennis Today

Yahoo! Sports: Tennis - McEnroe reverts to childish blather - or does he? I like tennis, but the culture of pro-tennis is really strange. The US Open is going on, yet all the stories about tennis now are about McEnroe being a jerk, the controversy over the Arthur Ashe statue, and Damir Dokic -- the rowdy, boozehound paranoiac who makes Steffi feel good about her dad. Tennis just can't get a decent image. Pete Sampras is probably the greatest player ever and this should be considered a high point in the history of tennis, but the only tennis player I can remember seeing on the cover of SI is Anna Kournikova -- and she didn't get there by winning tournaments. There's the argument that Sampras doesn't have a foil to make his reign interesting, but neither does Tiger and golf seems to be doing OK.

Bichette? Hmmmm.

Bosox news: ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Bichette deal frees up money for Reds. Dante Bichette doesn't sound like as bad an acquisition as Ed Sprague was, but his outside-of-Coors-Field numbers really aren't that great. He's a crappy outfielder; I wonder if they plan to make him DH and play first. Bosox already have plenty of outfielders.

Identity Crisis

New Scientist: Coffee without the kick. "The adverse effects of caffeine include palpitations, high blood pressure, and insomnia." There are more philosophical issues behind this genetic engineering stuff than just the "playing God" issue: strip away my palpitations, high blood pressure, and insomnia -- and what's left of my identity? It's an existensial crisis as well.

Wednesday, August 30, 2000

First Stinkymeat, now this ...

The Peculiar Art of Mr. Frahm. Mikey's been hard at work finding studies of the odd and unsavory.

The Tao of Steve

Caught a matinee showing of The Tao of Steve. Not a "great" movie, but a really good one. It's one of those guy-tries-to-figure-out-how-to-understand-relationships movies in the vein of a Swingers but with a more Southwestern laid-back groove. Dex, the protagonist, is a Don Giovanni gone to seed. He's got a whopper of a beer belly and needs to shave, but he's got a philosophy of life that helps him "succeed" with the ladies, if you want to call it that. Of course, he falls in love and it disrupts his life ... until he figures things out in the end. Not exactly revelatory, but still fun to watch. It's one of those movies that is carried by the performances and willingness not to take itself too seriously, like it's got all the answers. Good soundtrack too. Less hip than Swingers, sunnier than High Fidelity -- if you liked both or either of those two, fair chance you'll dig this one much more than, say, going to work.

Love Pedro

Quote of the Day: Pedro Martinez, after pitching a 1 hitter last night in which his first inning beaning of Gerald Williams sparked a series of brawls, retaliations, and ejections -- "There's no crying in baseball."

Dnews

I'm one of the guys who found DNews via Jimbo's World. I've been going through the "Blog" subfolder in my Favorites list this morning and purging the ones I don't read anymore -- DNews is one that I'm adding.

Be Careful What You Wish For (Reality TV Edition)

Shameful admission: I watch Big Brother once in a while. It's a bad show. Boring. Ironically, because the people on the show seem to be genuinely nice and not interested in hurting anyone's feelings. Consequently, no matter what the producers try to do to rile things up, the contestants just band together and decide they are going to protect each other. Occasionally, you get good viewing ... well, the only time I found myself really paying attention to the show was when Curtis refused to out and out tell Karen that he didn't nominate her because he believed in the principle of not sharing that information for the good of the house. Except for Brittany (and Eddie, who sometimes looks like he's about to go ballistic), the remaining housemates are too well-adjusted and smart to want to screw with anyone. Good for them. On the other hand though, it makes you kinda wish they filled the house with nutjobs and goofballs so we could see what the Brits are seeing on their Big Brother ... Big Brother's Mel strips on camera. They've got a lesbian ex-nun and some flirts we've got brainy Curtis and Cassandra. I'd rather know Curtis and Cassandra, but I'd rather watch the kids in Britain.

Sick Day

Why am I blogging now when I never blog on weekdays on account of work? Reasonable question. I can't even remember the last time I took a sick day, but when I woke up this morning the thought of dragging my tired body into that hellhole made me so nauseous I simply couldn't get out of bed until I hit on the happy idea of calling in *koff* sick-like. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself all day. I'll probably finish "American Tabloid" ... the events of the novel are rapidly approaching the Kennedy assassination and I'm curious to see if Ellroy is going to spin a theory about it. I could see him making J. Edgar Hoover the brains behind it, but he's also got plenty of FBI/CIA/Mob figures floating around with motive. After I finish that up, I may go take in a matinee. Not sure though what's there I might wanna see. I mowed the lawn last night, so I don't have any "chores" that need doing, well, except apt. hunting, but I've already done some of that this a.m. How would you spend your day if you were playing hooky? Drop me an e-mail and if I like your idea I'll do it and you, stuck at work -- poor sap, can live vicariously through C-Dog. :)

Please, No.

Jackie in talks to play Stretch Armstrong for Disney. I'm not finding much good news this morning.

Blade 2

Snipes and screenwriter Goyer talk about Blade 2. To me, this sounds like bad news. Maybe I'm gunshy after being so disgusted with Snipes in "Art of War," but genetically engineered super vampires? I guess I'm having a hard time figuring out where the demand would come from to get that research off the ground.

Tuesday, August 29, 2000

Baseball Is Better

People complain about baseball being boring all the time, but I'm here listening to the Bosox at Tampa and you've got some kind of drama with a Pedro beanball sparking a brawl that got Sox third baseman Merloni out of the game with a concussion, Tampa pitchers targeting Daubach (he's been thrown at 3x tonight) and all kinds of ejections going on ... plus, it's bad mojo to mention what Pedro's six innings into throwing, so I won't, but there's always a chance --- and as I write Daubach got thrown at for a fourth time and the benches are clearing and there's a big time brawl firing up ... crazy.

Monday, August 28, 2000

Wes Anderson In Progress

A spoiler-free review of the next Wes Anderson / Owen Wilson script. Rushmore and Bottle Rocket are two of my favorite films, Anderson's 3rd movie may be the one that pushes Brazil out of the C-Dog Top 10.

Friday, August 25, 2000

"The Art of Snore"

I rushed home soon as I could to warn everyone not to get their hopes up for the new Snipes "action" pic. It sucked monkey. Horrible script, full of holes, yet jam packed with every cliche in the action movie lexicon. Bad guys, when will they learn to make sure the chauffeur is actually the chauffeur? Evidently, never. It's protocol to announce spoilers in web reviews, but why bother in a case like this? The movie is one giant spoiler to begin with. Ugh, I can't get over how stupid it was, how illogical -- it was insulting. I could feel myself getting stupider as I watched.

Thursday, August 24, 2000

Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Bosstones in Providence tonight ... sweet. They still rock. They played a few new songs but primarily stuck to the crowd faves. I picked up the new album and listened to it all the way back home. I didn't care much for Question the Answers and Don't Know How to Party, but they're on a roll with these last two studio efforts. I noticed a week or so back that the old T I picked up at one of the shows at UConn has gotten a bit thin and holey, so I splurged on one of the new deluxe long sleeve bright red Bosstones shirts. Mighty Mighty.

Wednesday, August 23, 2000

How do the Chinese people endure their government?

Chinese officials kill baby to enforce birth rule.

Compulsive Blogging

I have to get to work early tomorrow so I can get out early and trek to Providence for the Bosstones show and yet I'm still sitting here blogging. Blogger, yer killin' me!

Tuesday, August 22, 2000

Side Effects Include ...

Scientists discover key to invisibility. Sounds cool until you read the last line:

"The team has yet to look into the toxicity of the technique, which Prof Welch admitted was 'an important question'."

Michael Richards = One Trick Pony?

Some not-so-encouraging news about the new Michael ("Kramer") Richards show.

Sunday, August 20, 2000

Wednesday, August 16, 2000

LOTR

Salon.com article on Jackson's LOTR trilogy. (via Ghost in the Machine, one of Triptych Cryptic's favorite places to go and snatch links!)

Ne'er-Do-Well, Too

It occurred to me today that if I end up moving and taking the job with the new firm in RI, I'll have lived in three states in the span of nine months. After years of writing "itinerant bunco artist" and "migrant farm worker" in the occupation box on my tax returns ... it's finally starting to come true.

Sunday, August 13, 2000

"Assign The List Thing To Anyone ..."

There's a lot of great tv sci-fi missing from this list of Great moments in sci-fi dramas. Hard to believe someone got paid for writing a list of standout sci-fi drama series and left out: Babylon 5, Nowhere Man (underrated and unwatched UPN series that was part The Prisoner, part The Fugitive), Blake's 7, Star Trek: TNG, Doctor Who, and Farscape.

Saturday, August 12, 2000

Stumbled On

Invisible Broadcast System: Not often, but every once in a while I find a blog by checking out the fresh updates at blogger that I'm actually interested in reading. The top post on this one when I went there was about sci-fi and post-modernism: cool.

Friday, August 11, 2000

Hat Tip

Thanks to re-run for the name props. The name's only the tip of the iceberg though, baby, it's all good! Well, except the layout. And the way I'm always posting whatever nonsense flies between these flesh-toned satellite dishes I call ears.

Thursday, August 10, 2000

Bloodlines

I just heard on ESPN radio that Paul O'Neill (of the Yankees) is a direct descendant of Mark Twain. I still hate the Yankees. And .... yup ... still don't like O'Neill either.

Wednesday, August 9, 2000

Screw The Gatekeepers

Cool. My whole Nader schpiel just turned into an enormous broken link. *Sigh* I wonder, too, if all the people who wanted Nader to win voted for him, he would actually win? The "Nader can't win" argument is a powerful example of media gatekeeping and manipulation. People believe Nader can't win because the networks say he can't win, therefore he can't win.

Let's Check The Record

Lieberman's Voting Record . At Counterpunch.

Settle Down C-Dog, Settle Down

It seems to me, there are only 3 reasons someone wouldn't vote for Nader:

(1) They prefer one of the other candidates
(2) They aren't going to vote at all
(3) They prefer Nader, but don't want to "waste" their vote

Three reasons. Three bad reasons.

(1) Bush? I won't dignify that with a response unless I have to. Gore? The last time I had a party affiliation, it was to the Democrats. (And then only so I could vote for Jerry Brown in the primary.) I recognize that people might feel a loyalty to a political party for historical reasons, or family reasons, or whatever ... and while I don't mean to imply that Gore is the worst nominee the Dems ever put forward, I have to wonder: is this guy a Democrat in whatever vestigial sense of meaning that word retains? Should there be any party loyalty there? Will Bush or Gore destroy the country if elected? Probably not. Reagan was a complete tool and though we were nearly driven into the ground by his insane economic theory and demented foreign policy, we still have roads, electricity and didn't get nuked off the planet, so we can probably survive either of the two current big party puddin'heads. Even if you don't like Nader, do you think he could really do more harm as well-meaning public servant not beholden to corporate America than two politicos whose greatest desire seems to be to throw our tax dollars into the already overstuffed coffers of the rich in return for ... ? (We'll probably never know what.)

(2) The only reason not to vote is the feeling that voting only feeds "the machine," that voting implies acceptance of the current system, that something other than voting (revolution) is needed to set things right -- but there is no revolution. There could be reform though. We could elect Nader.

(3) When did voting become a game? It's not the Kentucky Derby; you don't get paid if you bet the perfecta 1-2. It's ridiculous that a vote for a candidate you actually believe in could be described as wasted. The whole gamesmanship thing with it's air of realpolitik, which is so much bullshit, that's what's making it so easy for the big money parties to prevent the development of a strong third party. There's this: "If I don't vote for Gore, then Bush might win!" For one thing, either your vote matters or it doesn't, and if you think it does and you don't vote for the candidate you think is the best, then you are just as much a tool as G.W. The other thing is, if you vote for Gore to keep Bush from winning, you moron, you just helped elect another Republicrat/Demopublican.

I'd rather Gore than Bush. But I'd rather Nader than either of them, that's why I'm going to vote for him. If my vote is the one that costs Gore the election, as if that were a sensible way to talk about an election, then so be it.

Tuesday, August 8, 2000

Defending Digimon

I like this blog, it's very un-Cluttered in it's layout. I found it by searching Blogger for sites that referenced Digimon recently. I was a little disappointed to see the reference was a dig, but otherwise it was good reading. Digimon is good, dammit. Good, I say.

Saturday, August 5, 2000

High Rise

Seeing the new Aldiss book at the local Barnes Ignoble got me thinking about other old "new wave" Brit writers I've lost track of ... like J.G. Ballard. I still think "High Rise" is his best. (Didn't see a listing at Amazon, o/p? That'd be a shame.)

Friday, August 4, 2000

Feeling Puzzled

Can anyone tell me why Brian Aldiss felt the need to re-write Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy? Aldiss is a fine writer, but this puzzles me.

Like Bone Daddy, I thought W's speech was unnervingly Democratic, from it's themes to it's references. Honestly, I hadn't listened to any of his previous campaign speeches so I didn't know what to expect, what I heard though certainly wasn't it. (Compassionate Conservatism, in the modern context you don't have to try very hard to equate that with some other popular oxymorons.) Some of his talk points sounded nice-n-friendly, but I guess I didn't believe he believed a single word he was saying. When he talked about that kid in prison all I could think of was Travolta in "Primary Colors" telling a stretcher to the folks at the adult literacy group. Even if I'm wrong and he did believe in what he was saying, wouldn't matter, it's all about the benjamins and he's bought and paid for, beholden to the deep pockets. I'm throwing in for the Nader / El Guapo ticket.

There Is Only One El Guapo

Darn it. I thought someone had put together a tribute to svelte Bosox hurler Rich Garces: The Official El Guapo Website. No such luck. Just some band.

A&W Is Good Enough

My grandfather was over tonight and we got to talking about homebrewing (he does a little, but he makes more wine than beer -- he has fruit trees in his yard) and it turns out that not only can you home brew beer, but you can make your own root beer. I thought I'd give that a shot, but after reading about it a bit, I'm a little concerned about safrole poisoning and the possibility of having a fermenting bottle of root beer blow my head off.

Wednesday, August 2, 2000

Fuzzy Con Memories

Stuff that J. Michael Straczynski had to say at Comic-Con. Help me out fellas, what was the last con we went to? Arisia? Or was that the first? It's been so long it's a blur. Anyone else remember that dipshit with his stash of pre- New Coke original Coke?

I Shoot With My Mind

Linking to I Shoot ... because it was in the referral log and he, rightly, sings the praises of Making Movies -- though I gotta admit I'm not big on the song "Les Boys".

Tuesday, August 1, 2000

Monday, July 31, 2000

Fur Pelts for BLTs

I missed the first half, but so far I think Miller's doing a fine job in the booth. My favorite quip: "Al, I think the kids on Survivor have a better per diem than we do. I had to trade for a BLT with fur pelts this afternoon." He's interacting well with Fouts and Michaels; I think this experiment is going to pay off. About the game itself:

(1) Go Pats!

(2) I'm not crazy about the new Pats color scheme on the unis.

(3) I like the "Umpire-Cam" but I'm not crazy about the audio, hearing so much field noise it's drowning out the play-by-play.

Wednesday, July 26, 2000

Visions Of The Scrambler Dance In My Head

I'm off to Madison straight after work tomorrow. Back Monday. I hope there are dozens of cool posts to read when I get back. Hey Mega, guess what I'm eating for breakfast all weekend ... that's right, the Scrambler! Ah, the Scrambler, a plate full of fried potatoes, covered with eggs that've been scrambled with sausage, the whole thing smothered with sausage gravy, and topped with a generous portion of Wisconsin cheddar. A chocolate malt and a cup of coffee on the side and you don't have to eat again all day. That's the stuff.

Sunday, July 23, 2000

Tall Ships

Like having the President and Vice-President fly in the same plane, it's one of those things you wouldn't ordinarily tempt fate with, but in the course of congregating to celebrate Tim's wedding the minds behind Triptych Cryptic spent much of the weekend in the same room(s) together eating stuffed mushrooms and chicken tenders, singing a cappella versions of "The Circle of Life" & "Ring of Fire," fighting over climate control in the hotel room (equatorial jungle vs. cool mountain breeze), playing Oh Hell, and listening to Mega rant about "tall ships" being gay code. (Not all at the same time, I'm condensing for brevity.) Sadly, things have returned to normal.

Friday, July 21, 2000

27

It's not a particularly well written article, but Kurkjian's "A man born to play behind the plate" at ESPN.com does articulate two of the main reasons Carlton Fisk is a deserving Hall of Famer and one of my favorite players -- though I could never stand to see him in those crappy Chisox unis. That he was one of the best catchers ever is obvious; that he could be abrasive and confrontational while still being in the best tradition of the game, that's the real reason Bosox fans still love him. Well, that and the home run.

Tuesday, July 18, 2000

Use Clean Technique

I may be a kind of a dumbass in the grand scheme of things, but unlike *riotHERO I haven't pissed on my hands lately. Bwaaaa-hahhh-hahh!!! OH, dammit! Nevermind.

NVCP

Neocron Virtual City Project. (found via apathy)

Too Shy

You don't even want to know what I thought the lyrics of "Too Shy" meant. OK, I'll tell you. I thought the girl was too shy to go down on the guy. I thought the "eye to eye" bit was her eye to his one-eyed trouser schnauzer, that's why he wants her to move a little closer. HD is probably closer to right than I am though. Now that I've written this, I wish I could sign this post "Mega."


Most common misspelling on the web since X-Men came out: "Rouge" for "Rogue."


I think the Matrix sequel should take place more in the "real" world, less in the Matrix. Hard to imagine how Neo's new powers will remain interesting if they spend much time in the Matrix-- they've got the "Superman Dilemma" and will have to struggle for something more interesting than kryptonite to foil Neo. I think the way to go is to expand on the Joey Pants character's crisis: some people will prefer to stay in the Matrix and how will Neo use his powers against people who have aligned themselves with the agents?

Monday, July 17, 2000

Pop Culture Detritus Cranial Jam

"Smithers had thwarted my earlier attempt to take candy from a baby; but, with him out of the picture, I was free to wallow in my crapulence."


Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night unable to remember what I was dreaming about with, what I suspect, is an entirely unrelated bit of pop-kitsch ephemera lodged in my frontal lobe. Part of the problem is I've been falling asleep with the stereo tuned to ESPN Radio and hearing the score of the Braves-Tampa Bay interleague game for the 50th time seems to interfere with my dreamscape.

Sunday, July 16, 2000

Gorgeous

I was reading about Jackie Chan's Gorgeous at alt.asian-movies and it turns out the version I have is actually a hacked up edit. It was still good, but why do Columbia and New Line feel the need to mess with these movies? The people who want to buy them want the original, full-length versions. They are never going to be mainstream big sellers, so why alienate the fans who would gladly plunk down their hard earned $20 for movies as they were originally released?

Saturday, July 15, 2000

X-Men

X-Men was good. Dare we hope Daredevil gets similar treatment?

Thursday, July 13, 2000

Grosse Pointe Blank FTW

I don't remember how I signed up for it, but I got my $20 off at BestBuy Online today. Their DVD collection is predictably crappy and overpriced. With $20 off though, can't go wrong. It was a tough choice ... I thought about getting Ninja Scroll, and one of the Avengers collections, but finally settled on Grosse Pointe Blank.


I guess the Hartford Brewery went out due to the competition.

Wednesday, July 12, 2000

RIP Hartford Brewery

The Hartford Brewery is no more. I'm glad I got one last trip in before it shut down.

Saturday, July 8, 2000

Potter Blitz

The media blitz is working; I'm really curious about the Harry Potter books and may read one to see if they're worth the press. If you're already hooked, here's a good spot to keep up on articles about the series: The Leaky Cauldron: We Blog for Harry. (via Ghost in the Machine)

Tuesday, July 4, 2000

Casey At The Tee

PGA asks Supreme Court to consider Casey Martin case. The pros on the tour seem to be afraid the cart gives Casey and unfair advantage. I wonder if they're weighing that against his painful circulatory condition? There's a real advantage. "Hey, look at me, I can barely walk from the cart to the tee. You suckers are going down..." vroom, vroom.

Sunday, July 2, 2000

Random

This page is on GeoCities. So is my personal page. This link is a fun way to see what other folks are doing with their pages: Random GeoCities page. It's easy to see why smarmy bloggers dog these pages, but every now and again you stumble across an interesting one. Keep your expectations low and file this link under: Timekiller.

Saturday, July 1, 2000

Only Connect (Helena Bonham Carter Fight Club Edition)

Mark has posted a Fight Club commentary in the Pocketverse. I had a somewhat different take on the movie's message, I think, and I'm always ready to admit I could be wrong, but I didn't think the revolutionary group/frat-boy bit was meant to be an "answer" to the the emasculating effects of consumer culture. I felt the movie was portraying that response as missing the point and being a false solution -- actually, I thought the anti-consumer message was more of a "paste-on" theme and that the only thing the movie was unambiguous about was that the Norton character wouldn't be healed until he could connect with Helena Bonham Carter character, thereby placing it, with Howard's End, in the fine tradition of movies that pander to my secret desire to "connect" with Helena Bonham Carter.

Thursday, June 29, 2000

"I Hit A Water Buffalo With My Car..."

Kevin Smith is going to do a Fletch movie.

Mark Twain Festival

The first weekend in August is the Mark Twain Festival here in Hartford. I heard about it on the radio, but haven't been able to find a link to it yet. Some good bands playing, Roomful of Blues is the one that I remember. Not sure what they have to do with Mark Twain, but there you have it.

When are the Red Sox going to make a move to get a pitcher or another slugger? The Yanks are out there wheeling and dealing. We've got Pedro on the DL, all kinds of problems in both the outfield and infield. The lineup has been so weird, what with all the call-ups, and the shuffling around has resulted in pitchers hitting -- twice last night!

Huskies In The NBA

ESPN.com grades each team's draft. They don't think much of the UCONN-O-Centric philosophy of the Bulls' draft. I can't believe the Bulls let Mihm go ... because they were sure they could get Voskuhl later?? It'll be strange watching the Bucks play the Bulls next year (not that that game would ever be televised) ... I'll still be pulling for the Ray and the Bucks. Can't tolerate the Bulls.

Saturday, June 24, 2000

Call Me Chiisu-san

I'm on the anime trail tonight. Sidetracked, I found out how to say my name in Japanese. Call me Chiisu. Uninterestingly enough, my surname remains the same. (Turns out Saki already had a Japanese name. Ironic.)

Jackie and Jet

Jackie Chan to have a guest spot on Fox's The PJs & Jet Li to play Kato in a new Green Hornet movie. All kinds of news at this site: UMJAMS Anime News.

Friday, June 23, 2000

Thursday, June 22, 2000

Monday Night Rants

Dennis Miller is joining Monday Night Football?! Color me intrigued. I don't want to get off on a rant here ... but I don't know if even that will get me to watch the Week 13 snooze-a-thon between.... (kidding Packer fans, kidding, it actually looks like a good schedule coming up for MNF next year.)

Wednesday, June 21, 2000

Sports Night RIP

I kinda knew I was one of only a dozen or so people who actually watched Sports Night, so it shouldn't have surprised me to learn that it's been cancelled. Why do good shows die when shows like Home Improvement stain the airwaves for years?

Sunday, June 18, 2000

The Onus Is On Us

I'm not against e-signatures. I worry about the potential for fraud, but a real signature can be faked too. What concerns me the most about this new e-sig bill is that we (consumers) may find we have a new burden to prove that we're the victims of fraud. What kind of proof are they going to want?

Wednesday, June 14, 2000

Jet Li News

Jet Li and Luc Besson team up. So what do you get when you mix The Professional and Fist of Legend? Hopefully all the action and none of the pedophilia.

Saturday, June 10, 2000

Warp Speed

This may be old news that has already been debunked, but it's pretty exciting to read about what could possibly maybe be the first steps toward time travel (!!!) and interstellar travel (!!!): speed of light exceeded, maybe.

Thursday, June 1, 2000

Money Makin'

Cruise is getting 12% of Mission: Impossible 2's worldwide gross. That's over and above his $20 million up front and $30 million (anticipated) from merchandising and video sales. I think it grossed over $70 million domestically in its first weekend. He's going to make well over $60 million before all is said and done, probably quite a bit more. Wow.

Monday, May 29, 2000

Bad Career Moves

Read at UGO that Renny Harlin will be the director of "Nosebleed," the next American Jackie Chan movie. Ugh.

Tuesday, May 23, 2000

The Long View

I'm surfing aimlessly, still half-an-eye open to reading lists, while Trish sleeps. She may be more like Mega than she thinks -- look at the time! Found this semi-interesting page, John Reilly's Homepage, indirectly from apathy.

Monday, May 22, 2000

Nader or Gore?

Gore on Gore. He's fighting for this and working for that. Get y'r propaganda straight from the plank's own site. Hey guys, does Triptych Cryptic endorse anyone for President? Are we ready to throw down for Nader?

Wednesday, May 17, 2000

Sleater Kinney

Great time had up in Noho last night. Damn my allergies, feeling like walking death with itchy eyes makes it hard to properly enjoy a fine night out with my peeps. Still, was great to hang with De-bop a bit and down some rum-n-cokes before seeing Sleater Kinney rip through a hot set at Pearl Street. Mark & I both got our arses groped in the crowd, but don't worry Joolz, though Mega was accounted for, we think Stevie may have have been delirious from watching all the lesbian couples dancing together and just started groping at random.

I was two hours late for work this morning, but it wasn't enough.

Peter Munro is pitching for the Jays against the Bosox right now. It's a little eerie hearing "Munro winds and delivers ... Munro steps off the rubber and looks Veras back to first ..." and so on.

Last mention, the new Looper album, "The Geometrid" is excellent. Love the Looper.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...