Remains of the Day

On the road again

Farewell Emerald City, and on to San Francisco. It's always fun when you get a list of directions from Mapquest that includes a leg of 716 miles.

UPDATE: 12 hours and 848.7 miles later, I made it. Thanks to the biker gang and the red Volkswagen Beetle who provided me a 95mph escort through most of Northern California, shielding me from any culpability in speeding, and to the refurbished/repackaged st-generation iPod travel kit (cigarette lighter charger and cassette tape adapter) at the University Village Apple store. The song shuffle function on my iPod loved Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs. The most frequently sighted vehicles on the road were semis carrying goods for Wal-Mart (or perhaps they were transporting underpaid workers from who knows where to god knows where). 88 miles from San Francisco, I came across an exit for Road 8. Burger King currently offers an Angus steak burger. It is still impossible to find parking in San Francisco, but rent here is a magnitude of order cheaper than in NYC.

Amsterdam becomes a giant hotspot

Cool. On my most recent trip to France and London, I found a few more wi-fi spots than before, though it was still spotty. I actually visited McDonald's a few times while in Paris just to use their free wi-fi.

I can't wait for ubiquitous wi-fi in the States. When that type of infrastructure is in place, all sorts of new business opportunities will arise.

Greenlake half marathon

I ran my first half marathon yesterday: just over four laps around Greenlake, or just over 13 miles. What an ordeal.

Dave ran the first lap with me, and all was well. Partway through my second lap, I had a gastrointestinal emergency and ran my fastest mile split in racing to a public bathroom. One stall, no door. Lovely.

Having overcome that, my third lap was shaky. My knees felt really stiff and sore, and my left ankle started to sting. Before my fourth lap, I stopped at my car to eat a Clif Shot and pick up my iPod. The sun had set by the time I set off for the final lap, and I started to shiver. I had also forgotten to bandage/apply Vaseline to my nipples and between my legs (yes, these are the gory details familiar to long-distance runners but not yet second nature to me). There was a traffic jam of pain signals from all around my body up my spine that last lap.

I staggered in, bowed by not beaten. After a bit of stretching, I limped over to a supermarket and stocked up on Gatorade and some Icy Hot bandages, one for each knee.

My limiting factor remains my knees, and to a certain extent my ankles. The lungs feel fine, though I'm still a tortoise. I'll miss Greenlake and its outer path of dirt and gravel. It's softer than pavement, and for the most part it's level. If they'd only install some more lights around the perimeter it could be a round-the-clock training route.

Virus

Cool video visualization of a T4 virus invading an E-Coli cell (link is in the right nav). Server must be overwhelmed right now as the link has turned non-responsive. Mirrors and/or a torrent will likely pop up soon.

UPDATE: Found a copy of the video at Wired. Link is in the right nav.

Trampled by elephants

American Voice 2004 provides a good overview of conservative and liberal stances on a broad list of issues.

James Surowiecki on convention economics. Me, I'm glad to be away from NYC during the RNC.

A Yale economist has built a regression-based model which he claims is quite accurate. It predicts Bush will win 58% of the vote in capturing the 2004 election. The usual caveats about regression models apply (you can tinker with regressions until they do a great job predicting the past, but that's no guarantee that the same equation and variables are a great predictor of the future). Meanwhile, The Iowa Electronic Markets now grant Bush a substantial lead in the 2004 election winner-takes-all market (a $1 share of Bush pays some $0.55 while a $1 Kerry share only pays $0.45). It's amazing that the Republicans, with a candidate who likely tried to get out of serving in the military, could put the Democrats, with a candidate who has medals up the yin yang, on the defensive and center all media coverage on the validity of Kerry's decorations. And then Bush comes in and tries to take the high ground by urging a halt to 527's and to any questioning of Kerry's military record. If Bush and his allies were behind the Swift Vet attacks, it was a masterful campaign gambit.

Super System II

Coming soon: Doyle Brunson's Super System II

[grimace and brace for poker website comment spam]

Son of a...

James pointed this out to me...

Listen to the second pronunciation of "son of a bitch" on Merriam Webster's website (click on the right audio wave icon). Who knew that was an acceptable pronuciation? Why is that so funny to me?

Grayson, the movie

Grayson, a movie shot over one and a half years for just under $18K by a pair of film fanatics. Since it appears we won't get the big studio Superman/Batman movie, this excellent faux trailer lets us dream of what a DC Universe-encompassing comic book movie might be like. Worth the long download. [via Metafilter]

I forwarded this to James, who sent me the following e-mail, in which he poses a question and then, perhaps unintentionally, answers it:

"So this isn’t a real movie?

The woman who plays Catwoman is none other than Kimberly Page, wife of WWE star Diamond Dallas Page, the wielder of the deadly Diamond Cutter."

Olympic OD

I've OD'd on the Olympics. No more. I can't watch another minute. A few impressions remain...

Google Olympic doodles

Ah, Svetlana. I didn't realize she was still competing. It feels like she's been competing at the Olympics since I was born; I haven't seen such staying power since Heather Locklear. Before the individual all-around competition, NBC aired an interview with Svetlana in which one of her statements was translated into subtitles thus: "I want to win a gold [in the all-arounds] as badly as I want to mother my own child." After she won silver, she took the time to cement her diva status by badmouthing gold medal winner Carly Patterson. I, for one, will miss the grand diva.

Sharon, Alan, and I watched the end of the women's triathlon. Kate Allen of Austria sprinted past the favored Loretta Harrop at the end to claim victory. Al Trautwig's commentary as Allen crossed the finish line: ""Here's how this went. An Australian was on vacation in Europe, fell in love with an Austrian man. They went to the pool, and this was born. And now it turns out to be a gold medal for Kate Allen and Austria." Close your eyes and hear this pronounced with Trautwig's almost self-parodying tone of gravitas, and then burst out in laughter.

The one Olympic sport I'll never take seriously is race walking. It's not just that the walkers look ridiculous because of the rule that requires them to keep at least one foot on the ground at all times. It's that the silliness is legislated into the rules. Race walking is just running with rules that force the runners to slow down to a walk. The sport is supposedly difficult and stressful, and I don't doubt that it is, but I watch the walkers and can't help thinking that I could keep up with the leaders. They look like I did that one time in Ecuador when I had some bad some bad ceviche and had to hoof it dozens of blocks back to the bathroom in my hotel room.

In contrast, who would have thought pole vaulting could be so exciting? And not just because of the opportunity to see Iceland's Thorey Elsa Elisdottir in high def? Everytime I think of pole vaulting, I think of Digman (Owen Wilson) in the classic Bottle Rocket: "Here are just a few of the key ingredients: dynamite, pole vaulting, laughing gas, choppers - can you see how incredible this is going to be? - hang gliding, come on!"

I still have no idea what happened in the Paul Hamm gymnastics controversy. Was it an adding error, as in they added numbers improperly? Or just human judgment error? Those are two very different things. In the case of the former, Hamm should return the gold. If it's the latter, then tough luck for the South Koreans. Who understands gymnastics scoring anyway? It's beyond the comprehension of non gymnastics experts, and seemingly even to those within the sport. That they display scores to the thousandths decimal point lends a deceiving precision to the whole practice of gymnastics scoring. It's not a good sign for a sport's spectator appeal when Nemov's routine appeared to most audiences to be superior to everyone else's and yet he didn't medal. People don't like to watch programs that make them feel stupid.

tish doog

Tricks of the trade (via The Morning News). And more followups, via Me-Fi.

Quentin Tarantino's weblog (Or is it? None of the information seems particularly secret, so it's probably a fake. Then again, QT seems like the kind of guy who might conceivably have a lot to say, all the time, if he had the time, which he probably doesn't. If it's a fake, I'm sure the real McCoy will speak up soon.) UPDATE: Yep, it's fake.

Hardest cities to navigate by car (via Gothamist) - Top 5: Boston, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, and NYC. Not surprising to see Boston at the top; I visited Karen a year after she had moved there, and she still struggled to navigate the city. Street signs would help.

"When it comes to asking for directions, the age-old gender divide still holds true. 64 percent of women report that they are the ones who have to stop and ask for directions compared to 41 percent of men."

Mary Meeker's China Report

Mary Meeker's China Report is online for free (PDF file, 217 pages). The Morgan Stanley analyst is famous for having recommended stocks such as Netscape, AOL, Amazon, and eBay, but her reputation took a beating during the Internet bust when a lot of her recommendations went belly up. Many accused her of conflicts of interest since she was also trying to land a lot of these companies' IPOs and financing business for Morgan Stanley. She wasn't convicted of any wrongdoing during the Spitzer investigations, though.

I met her a few times while I was at Amazon and she was covering Amazon, and she always impressed me as a sharp mind. She was the analyst that mattered most, in our minds, and she grokked the Internet way before most anyone else on the Street (others who got it before everyone else: Bill Gurley, who wrote a brilliant research report on Amazon titled "Wave Riders" and Michael Maubossin). Before I joined Amazon, I had read her book The Internet Report, co-authored by Chris Depuy, and even though it made no mention of Amazon.com, it helped to convince me that I had to get in on the coming Internet boom. Recently, as I was packing my things up for storage in Seattle, I came across my copy, still dog-eared and highlighted cover to cover. Tossing it out was like saying farewell to my .com era.

Politics

A few interesting reads on how people choose their political affiliations and candidates...

Louis Menand surveys a body of political science books (Winning Elections: Political Campaign Management, Strategy & Tactics, the classic article "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics" by Philip Converse which is available in the OOP book Ideology and Discontent by David Apter, The Reasoning Voter, "Unenlightened Self Interest" by Larry Bartels in The American Prospect, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America) and summarizes their arguments of how voters choose who to elect. Well worth reading for those suspicious of whether or not ideas matter the most (or at all) in a democratic election.

Steven Berlin Johnson cites a U.C.L.A. study that indicates that conversative and liberal brains may react differently to various ideas and stimuli. It's still unclear whether this phenomenon really exists, and if so, what is cause and what is effect.

Matthew Yglesias argues that Bush's past three years proves that intelligence really does matter more than character in a president. Aaron Sorkin made that exact argument in several episodes of The West Wing, most notably in "Hartsfield's Landing" in season three. The episode addresses Gore's avoidance of the intelligence argument in the 2000 election. President Bartlet says to Toby: "If a guy is a good neighbor, if he puts in a day, if every once in a while he laughs, if every once in a while he thinks about somebody else and above all else if he can find his way to compassion and tolerance then he's my brother and I don't give a damn if he didn't get past finger painting. What I can't stomach are people who are out to convince people that the educated are soft and privileged and out to make them feel like they are less than, you know, 'He may be educated but I am plain-spoken like you.' Especially when we know that education can be the silver bullet. . . . for crime, poverty, unemployment, drugs, hatred."

AAAAAAA!

Yesterday, someone stole Edward Munch's famous painting The Scream!!! They also stole his painting Madonna.

Doesn't sound like security was all that tight. Movies have conditioned me to elaborate, never-been-cracked safeguards that require thieves to navigate three-dimensional grids of laserbeams, but in this case two men in ski masks simply waltzed in and waved some pistols at a few unarmed guards. How mundane.

A wise blog gains a crowd

Not that you need another reason to check out the always intriguing and insightful Tyler Cowen blog Marginal Revolution, but its guest blogger this week is James Surowiecki (author of The New Yorker's financial page and of the business bestseller The Wisdom of Crowds, a book that educated and entertained me while I traveled through France chasing the Tour).

Ridiculous

James introduced me to Revenge of the Ninja tonight. It is quite possibly the most unintentionally hilarious movie ever. I'm not sure what's more ridiculous: the movie, or the rave reviews for the movie on Amazon.com, written by ninja aficionados, including several who claim to be ninjas. In one scene, the hero is assaulted by a group of thugs hanging out at a local playground. What's ridiculous is that the thugs are dressed up as the Village People. Believe me; that only scrapes the surface of the hilarity contained in this 80's flick. James and I cackled like hyenas, and only a sliver of credit for that should belong to the bag of Kasugai gummies we polished off.

In the pantheon of movies that are so awful they're good, Revenge of the Ninja has to rank in the top ten.

Speaking of ridiculous, though, click on the "Making Of" link on the official French site for the Thai martial arts movie Ong Bak. The trailer contains a concluding shot that's nearly obscene, but the Making Of clips are even more ludicrous. Lead actor Phanom Yeerum is reminiscent of a Thai Jackie Chan what with his acrobatic, look-ma-no-wires stunt moves. The movie's available on DVD from a variety of sources including eBay. Make sure to get a copy with English subtitles, though only if that matters to you; the dialogue isn't exactly Shakespearean.

Eat to run, or run to eat

Marathon training continues, invigorated by an infusion of new routes thanks to Manhattan. I've jogged on the trail that runs along the east side of Manhattan (noisy and loud as it shoulders the FDR), along the west edge of Manhattan (lots of eye candy with the Hudson River to the west and the city skyline to the east), and of course Central Park (plenty of route permutations through its dense network of trails, and it contains the only soft surface I've found thus far in the 1.5 mile loop around Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir).

This marathon training is turning out to be useful, because without it I would've gained ten pounds in my one and a half weeks here. Manhattan is an embarrassment of riches for foodies. In just a few meals out, I've had insanely good sushi (Bond Street), delicious authentic Korean (Kang Suh), inspired American (Gotham Bar and Grill), cheap Chinese comfort food (Sammy's Noodle Shop), and satisfying wurst and corn fries (Mandler's Original Sausage Co.). I've run by at least a dozen other places I'm dying to try, and that's just to add to the list of twenty five or so places I've been told I must try. I could live here for the rest of my life and still be singing the same tune.

That pleases me.

Mission accomplished

I finally found an apartment in NYC. It's a loft-style apartment on the second floor of an old building, and the windows overlook Park Ave. I don't adore it, but then I realized that no apartment in NYC satisfies anyone's every wish, and in that way, the city equalizes everyone, rich and poor.

The location is extremely convenient. I'll be living in the Flatiron district, named for the famous Flatiron Building. I'm only a few blocks away from James and Angela and Union Square (mmmm, Union Square Cafe), and it will feel like I'm living in New York City. That feels right for my first year here.

No one enjoys apartment hunting in NYC, and now I understand why. It's a feeding frenzy driven by short supply and excess demand, and something about seeing one overhyped dump after another drains the soul. Add in a half dozen sleazy brokers calling you three times a day to hawk the next dump ("pre-war charm" is a euphemism for "old and filthy"; they claim to mean WWII but I'm suspicious). At the end of each day of apartment hunting, I'd check my wallet before taking a shower.

Brokers demand fees for soliciting and screening prospective candidates for the building owners and landlords. The fees demanded in NYC are outrageous, typically 15% of your first year's rent. In weak markets, owners/landlords will often pay the fees on behalf of the renter, but the vacancy rate in NYC is 1.7% right now, about as low as it goes in Manhattan. That means very few apartments are no-fee. Many building owners force you to go through a broker even if you contact them directly.

Thankfully, it's a process I can ignore for another year. I feel as if I've paid my membership dues for one of the most exclusive country clubs in the world.

Phelps 8, Greece 7

Currently, Michael Phelps has more medals than Olympic host country Greece, and he got them by swimming approximately 40 miles in eight days. I'm fairly certain that's more than I've swum in my entire life.

I've heard people complain that Phelps monopolized the Olympic press coverage, but the griping seems disingenuous. Who else did people expect to be the Olympic coverboy? Natalie Coughlin, like Phelps, a multi-discplinary swimming genius, pulled in five medals herself.

I like the white line NBC draws on the screen to indicate world-record pace, but I'd like to see them just superimpose the world-record swimmer(s) on the screen, perhaps in an extra lane somewhere. Maybe for the next summer Olympics.

and so on and so forth

Trailers for movies from some hip directors:

• Trailer for Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, starring Bill Murray and Owen Wilson. Can't say anything bad about a trailer that uses classic New Order (Temptation, I think)
• I Heart Huckabees is the new movie from David O. Russell. Russell is also finishing a documentary on the Iraqi War which will play prior to screenings of a rerelease of Russell's Three Kings this fall.

Sports nicknames that sound dirty, some vaguely, and some not: The Big Unit (Randy Johnson), The Thorpedo (Ian Thorpe), Horny (Jeff Hornacek), Mordecai "Three Fingers" Brown, Hammerin' Hank Aaron, The Splendid Splinter (Ted Williams), Walter "Big Train" Johnson, The Big Red Machine, Harvey's Wallbangers, Monsters of the Midway, The Italian Stallion (Rocky Balboa), The Chicoutimi Cucumber (Georges Vezina), and any nickname involving the word Rocket. Sexual euphemisms that won't catch on.

Qualia, Sony's new super high-end line of electronics, all identified simply by three digit codes. The minimalist (okay, empty and pretentious) website reminds me of the first Nissan Infiniti commercials which showed ocean water crashing on beaches, or fields of trees, but no cars.

Stuff to listen to on your new Qualia system: music from Iceland, much of it not available on CD in the US. However, you can order direct from Bad Taste.

A new study shows that one's inability to express a concept in language may limit one's ability to understand that concept. Is it a good or bad thing that most of us only learn a few dirty words in foreign languages?

Entourage

James and Angela subscribe to HBO On Demand, and that enabled me to catch up on all the episodes of HBO's new series Entourage. The show follows Vince, a hot B level movie star trying to attain A-list status, and his posse of childhood friends who live off Vince's wealth and fame, hanging onto his coattails. Together they try to navigate the temptations and pitfalls of the L.A. fast life.

After five episodes, I'm a convert. The writing hasn't been at the level of, say, The Sopranos, but the show benefits from being vaguely inspired by the life story of Mark Wahlberg. While watching, you're always left wondering who or what is being lampooned. Clearly Johnny "Drama" Chase is supposed to be Donnie Wahlberg, and the fact that he's played by a real-life lesser-known brother of a famous actor (Kevin Dillon, brother of Matt) adds a second layer of humor. His mustache, straight Matt Dillon from There's Something About Mary, is, as they'd say on the show, tight. Pop star and purported virgin Justine Chapin--she's probably spoofing Britney, but perhaps Jessica Simpson as well? Is this taken from the Britney-Colin Farrell tryst, or did Mark Wahlberg bag some other teen pop star?

The frequent guest appearances by real-life movie stars playing themselves (Jessica Alba, Mark Wahlberg, Sara Foster, Luke Wilson, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel) further smudge the lines between truth and reality. No effort is made to disguise locations--in fact, the episode guides online list the settings for notable scenes.

Some of the episodes have been flat, but the hip hop soundtrack is always bumping, and Jeremy Piven has officially and effectively taken over the role of resident obnoxious character from Jay Mohr. Many shows really hit their stride in season 2, and this is a promising start. HBO needed a comedy in addition to Curb Your Enthusiasm and Da Ali G Show to balance the melodrama of Six Feet Under, Deadwood, The Sopranos, and Oz, and now they have it.

Footnote: HBO's Entourage currently ranks third in a Google search for "Entourage" behind two sites about Microsoft Entourage, the e-mail client. My money's on the horse from HBO. Also, how long will it be before someone releases a "What character from Entourage are you" web quiz?

Gold rush

Even though NBC's coverage can be exasperating and even though everyone knows the key results before they air tape-delayed, I am, as usual, addicted to the Olympics on television. Every night, after an exhausting day of viewing appalling apartments costing more than I'd pay to rent a four to five bedroom house in Seattle, I've been watching the Olympics until NBC's prime-time coverage ends, almost as a form of visual comfort food (NYC is on the East Coast but operates on a West Coast time schedule, so I don't have any body clock adjustments to make; people go to work at 9am or later, eat dinner at around 9pm, go to bed around midnight or later). Perhaps I also feel the need to watch so as to lend some dignity to what must be the least-attended Summer Olympics ever. I haven't seen so few fans in the stands since the last national broadcast of a Montreal Expos game (which also took place the last time the Olympics were held in Greece).

I love volleyball (indoor sixes), swimming, and gymnastics. Volleyball because I learned to love the sport when I was in school, swimming because the sport drags out the suspense of close finishes just long enough to leave you out of breath, and gymnastics because there's always one competitor on each event that is freakishly superior to everyone else, all of whom are physical freaks in their own way. In men's gymnastics, some of the haircuts are atrocious, adding to the carnival freak factor. It's as if the guys all think to themselves, "Well, they're going to put us in these ridiculous outfits, what's the use of getting a stylish do?"

The women gymnasts, by virtue of their immense musculature, Spartan diets, and harsh training regimens, are nearly all midgets. NBC always plays short musical interludes introducing each team (where are the voiceovers by Dick Enberg this year?). Of course, for all the Eastern European and Asian teams, the soundtrack is stentorian, martial, and the images always depict abandoned training facilities that resemble prison gyms. As if the American gymnasts suffer any less horrific an upbringing.

These teenage girls, none of whom ever appear happy, then have one opportunity to capitalize on an entire lost childhood, after which they may finally grow beyond 5' 2" and 80 pounds, rendering them useless in the sport. In no other sport is the anticipation and dread of failure on the part of the audience so awesome, with the exception of perhaps figure skating, where once a skater loses his/her nerve, almost every routine seems to contain some mishandled jump. The frequency of errors in other sports may be just as high, if not higher, but the stakes for the competitors in gymnastics and figure skating are usually fatal, and the physical awkwardness of a gymnast falling off the high bar or missing a landing, or a figure skater tumbling onto his/her butt on the ice is difficult to exceed. Rick Ankiel unable throwing every ball to the backstop was unbearable to watch, but he's the exception in the baseball.

[Random note: in this year's Olympics, they're using a new unisex vault called Pegasus in gymnastics. Supposedly it's been tested for years and provides superior safety. I'm not sure why I'm noting this other than the fact that it was noticeable enough that everytime it appeared on television, someone would ask, "What's up with the vault?"]

True, the Olympics seem to include more and more obscure sports each time. The same people who complain about, say, synchronized diving are the same people who will tune in and watch an entire season of Fear Factor or The Apprentice or Survivor or The Bachelor or Average Joe or Celebrity Poker Showdown. I can picture myself competing and doing well in many reality television shows (except American Idol and that model show hosted by Tyra Banks).

Not so with even the most obscure of Olympic sports. In fact, I'm puzzled by why and how anyone picks up sports like the discus. How many people in the world throw the discus? Who would have started them on such a sport? How does one spot discus-throwing potential? The start-up costs seem too high. I picture young children spinning out of control and throwing discii wildly, through car and home windows, or worse, beheading innocent bystanders. Ditto with the hammer throw (is that still an Olympic event?). The mastery of such obscure and specialized arts provokes an odd fascination.

The thought of another day of apartment hunting is unbearable. Perhaps I'll mix things up and respond to a different sort of Craigslist ad. True, I lack nearly all of the qualifications. But isn't that what special effects houses are for--look at what they did to Andy Serkis in The Lord of the Rings. And surely the suspension of disbelief is already stretched to the limit. This is a movie that asks us to believe that through the use of a pair of glasses, Superman is unrecognizable as Clark Kent. I've seen better disguises from four year olds at Halloween.

Me as the next Superman or me as an Olympic gold medalist in the Trampoline (yes, it's an Olympic sport). Either way, it's a long journey.

The Magnet

Explanation of the visual effects behind the Nike Lance Armstrong commercial "The Magnet" (10.1MB Quicktime Movie).

I loved the commercial, and so, even if he's late to state it, did Eric Neel.

Not in Kansas anymore

For just this transition week, I received the Ticketmaster weekly newsletter for both Seattle and NYC.

The highlights in the Seattle newsletter:

• Queensryche (this was the headline of the newsletter)
• World Wrestling Entertainment (Raw)
• Alice Cooper
• Switchfoot
• Ludacris Chingy Pitbull Juvenile
• Magnetic Fields
• Touchdown Time High School Football Invitational (Tacoma Dome)

The highlights in the NYC newsletter:

• Sting (headline of the newsletter)
• Wilco
• The Pixies
• Social Distortion
• Franz Ferdinand
• U.S. Open tennis
• Norah Jones

On the other hand, apartment hunting in NYC is brutal. It has introduced me to one of the more loathsome professions of the world, apartment brokering. Simply by showing you an apartment that you end up renting, brokers expect you to pay them 15% of your first year's rent. Up front. Some brokers have entire buildings locked up, and some of those are fine buildings, but just on principal, I'm going to resist paying a penny to a broker if I can help it.

You'd think a broker would be friendly, seeking your business. Thus far, the three brokers I've spoken to have been rude, curt, and impatient. One blew me off for appointments today, wasting my afternoon.

Thankfully I have family here to make me feel welcome. Without Jeff, Sharon and Alan, and James and Angela, I'd be your classic beaten down little kid in the big city.

The hunt continues all week. It's overwhelming, the number of listings on Craigslist, in the classifieds of the Times or Village Voice, in books like Gabriel's Apartment Rental Guide, or on any of dozens of NYC apartment rental websites. Anybody know of a NY 1-bedroom apartment coming free soon?

click click click

Jessica Alba can't escape being cast as a comic book fantasy. She'll play Nancy in Sin City. Hellllloooo, Nancy. She'll also play Invisible Girl in the Fantastic Four movie. Why would anyone want Alba to be invisible? Can we make her new boyfriend Derek "Overrated" Jeter invisible?

How to fold a t-shirt in two moves (.mpg), as seen in Esquire. Gives me the goosebumps.

Movie Ministry (as seen in Time magazine) - need to tie your sermon in to a movie in theaters now?

Dusty Baker calls Sammy Sosa sensitive for refusing to be moved out of the 3 spot in the batting order despite being in a horrendous slump. The truth hurts; Sosa is a sensitive prima donna.

Quicktime trailer for Fight Club, the videogame. Looks like you can choose to play Bitch Tits. With x-ray cam cut shots a la Romeo Must Die.

Martin Scorsese Collection coming on DVD. Richard Linklater's Slacker gets the Criterion Collection treatment, as does Battle of Algiers. The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog also arrived on DVD, just this week. Sweet.

Use the popular vote, not the electoral college to elect our president - Amen.

Great little article by Louis Menand on Michael Moore and the history of the documentary. Where and when did we get this notion that documentaries were supposed to be completely unbiased?

Confessions of a Questec operator

M83

I really dig M83's album Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts...not surprising since I also dig My Bloody Valentine (try Loveless, for a tasty sample of their work, a track of which was featured on the Lost in Translation soundtrack), to whom M83 are often compared.

Salon is offering a free download of the M83 single Run With Flowers (right-click to save the MP3).

This type of music is often described as "sonic landscapes," which seems appropriate. The various instruments create layers of noise that overlap and interact in oddly melodious waves.

One solution to all our nation's ills

Kerry's plan to save the nation.

DNC speeches as audiobooks

Apple's iTunes Music Store has all the speeches from the Democratic National Convention available as free downloads (here's a link to Barack Obama's speech, for example...iTunes required). Quite handy for me since I was out of the country during the convention.

Edgar retires

Edgar Martinez retired today. I never became a Mariners fan in my years living here (true baseball fandom is like religion, it's acquired in one's youth), but I'll miss watching Edgar hit. The way he stayed behind the ball and produced power to the opposite field was beautiful to watch.

UPDATE: Edgar won't retire until season's end, giving his fans an opportunity to bid him a fond farewell.

An Apple that fell from the tree

Extraordinary Machine, a track from the new Fiona Apple album that Sony is refusing to release for some reason, has slipped out into the Internet. At last check, you could download it here.

Money can buy happiness, and some sweet earbuds

[via kottke via Peter Kaminski]

Robert Frank writes that money can buy increased happiness if spent not on more expensive goods like bigger houses or more expensive cars but instead on inconspicuous goods, like more time to travel or hang out with friends and family.

Considerable evidence suggests that if we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than before. But if we use an increase in our incomes to buy more of certain inconspicuous goods–such as freedom from a long commute or a stressful job–then the evidence paints a very different picture. The less we spend on conspicuous consumption goods, the better we can afford to alleviate congestion; and the more time we can devote to family and friends, to exercise, sleep, travel, and other restorative activities. On the best available evidence, reallocating our time and money in these and similar ways would result in healthier, longer– and happier–lives.

Of course, I suspect that purchasing a pair of Ultimate Ears earbuds would make me really happy. They'd better, considering they can cost $900 for a pair (not including the cost of getting an impression made of your ear), but how can you argue with this client list? I tried running with my iPod yesterday and my Sony earbuds kept falling out. Seriously, why are earbuds round? Who has ears shaped like that? I may have to resort to taping my earbuds into my ears. What I need are Penultimate Ears.

This week's NY Times Magazine

Lots of good articles and photos in this week's NY Times Magazine, focused on Olympic swimmers.

Another profile (and a good one) of Michael Phelps, one that states that Phelps is the best swimmer in the world.

Slideshow of some US Olympic swimmers in the water.

Another slideshow of the swimmers.

Photographic collage (Flash plugin required)

What is the ideal Olympic athlete? If the early Greeks are to be followed, the ideal is more like the egotistical, self-promoting, self-interested Achilles portrayed by Brad Pitt in Troy than the friendly sportsmen proffered by the media.

Finally, an Olympic-level vacuum cleaner, the Dyson vacuum, whose primary selling point may be that it showcases all the nasty gunk it sucks up out of your carpet with its 100,000 g of centrifugal force, in the process convincing you of its efficacy and indispensability. Reminiscent of the Biore nose strip, which shows you the results of its deforestation of your nose in a display both disgusting and satisfying. Needless to say, if I had $500 to spend on a vacuum, this is the one I'd buy. Available at Amazon.com.

OLN interview with Lance Armstrong

The Paceline has a transcript of OLN's post-Tour interview with Lance Armstrong. It's split into five parts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and it's worth the free registration to access them.

In particular, it answers a few open questions I had.

For example, what did Ullrich say to Lance after the descent from Col de la Croix Fry? Jan wanted Lance and Floyd to work with him, but Lance rightly urged Jan to pull since he had the most to gain on Basso that day.

Is it true Levi wants to rejoin US Postal? Lance was coy but made it known he'd love to have more Americans back together on Discovery Cycling. Personally, I think Rabobank does not have the right team to support Levi in his effort to win a major Tour (he rode too many kms alone this year to crack the podium), so rejoining a stronger team like Postal/Discovery would be smart.

Why didn't Lance gift Kloden stage 17 in the sprint? "...from the beginning of the Tour I said there are not going to be any gifts this Tour, I have done it as often as possible in most Tours and I never get paid back, in fact you end up getting slapped in the face for it..." I watched that stage end on Eurosport, and afterwards Lance recounted in French in an interview that Hinault had congratulated Lance on the podium afterwards and said, "Pas de cadeaux."

Phonak looked so strong, what went wrong? It didn't help that they used 19 mm tires during the team trial. As Lance puts it, "In the Team Time Trial they would have been close even with 3 or 4 flat tires, the only thing I go to there is: it was a terrible day, terrible weather – why do you put on the 19mm tires? You don’t do that. We rode with the biggest, heaviest nastiest tires we have. Because you know on days like that you get flats."

Review: Open Water
Out of sight, out of mind

PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Actors) would surely look askance on the treatment of Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis in Open Water. The directors tossed the two of them into shark-infested waters in the Bahamas along with dead tuna to attract the predators. Call it Stanislavsky for Dummies.

Moviemakers continue to obsess over making video look more like film, but for now, at least, the distinctive look of video serves as a useful visual cue. Open Water was shot with digital video camcorders, and this lends the movie the look and feel of realism (many a honeymooner will see the resemblance to their own crappy honeymoon video). The movie is also inspired by a true story of two scuba divers abandoned in the ocean, and all this conspires to produce the strong audience empathy that is central to the movie's chilling horror. The feeling, forever to be associated with the Blair Witch Project, is that of unearthing someone's private nightmare and realizing the personal terrors concealed by everyday life (the soundtrack is thankfully spare, except for occasional bursts of aboriginal music that distracted from the documentary feel).

The two lead actors play a generic yuppie couple stealing a quick scuba vacation in the midst of their fast-paced professional lives. Even as they pull out of the driveway, they're on their cell phones, tying up loose ends. Before we even have time to learn much about their respective personalities, they're underwater petting moray eels, and then an accounting error that would make Enron proud causes them to surface to a large expanse of empty ocean.

The audience never feels close to the characters in the way they might have if the story spent more time on character development, or even if the two parts had been played by more recognizable actors, but by movie's end, the shallow characterization didn't matter as much to me as it would in the usual movie. Open Water is about how quickly and how similarly we'd all devolve in the same situation, how being left behind by the world to serve as fish bait to packs of sharks strips us of our humanity and turns us literally into animals. As the hours tick by, the parade of emotions unfold in a familiar sequence: confusion, quick reanalysis of the situation (are we sure we surfaced in the right place?), attempts at humor (well, at least we have a good story to share at the office water cooler), disbelief, a gnawing terror as the sharks begin to circle, anger at the arbitrary cruelty of fate, blame (I wanted to go skiing instead!), and then a numbness as the two realize that they have been forgotten, that in this wide expanse of a world, a person might go days, even weeks, before he is missed.

The directors occasionally cut back to the mainland and show other vacationers reveling in tropic bars and clubs, daily life having continued without the couple in question. An even more claustrophobic depiction might have stayed solely with the couple from the time they were abandoned. It would make a fascinating alternative cut of the movie.

When I was on sabbatical in South America last year, I went on a several day W circuit through Torres del Paine. I did not realize that for three days I would not see another human being, the longest period of isolation from human contact in my entire life. On the third evening, I awoke in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom, but I could not find my flashlight. Without a single ray of moonlight, I was lost in the thickest darkness ever.

As I crawled and groped around my tent, primal horrors leaked out of my subconscious. What if I got lost and died out in the wintry wasteland? What if a pack of wild dogs hunted me down? What if I simply collapsed of illness and perished alone, like the young man in Into the Wild? How long would it take for the world to come searching for me? Was anyone in the world wondering where I was at that moment? Did anyone remember me, or was my connection to the rest of the world merely a matter of convenience and location?

Give me your tired, your poor, your shower curtains

One of the joys of returning to the States is the uniquity of shower curtains here. For some reason, many bathrooms in France and England do not have shower curtains. Many now have a half pane swinging glass door that conceals have the shower inadequately at best. But some, for example the one at my hotel in Paris, have no shower curtain at all.

This leads to some unusual contortions and gymnastics in the shower. I've never tried yoga, but I'm fairly certain I mastered a few of the advanced yoga positions while trying to keep my bathroom dry. All to no avail. I had to spend a euro to summon housekeeping to fetch me from the shower in a boat to convey me across the moat that had sprouted in the bathroom during my shower.

Why don't many European bathrooms have curtains? Is it because they only take baths? Seriously, does someone know? I'm dying to know.

So this is going to hurt

The cyclism is over, and now the running begins in earnest. I made a conscious decision not to look at any marathon training programs before my trip to France to follow the Tour because I had to focus on cycling and preparing for the Alps, and not the NY Marathon.

This morning I looked at the New York Road Runners 1st-time Marathoner training schedule and let out a blood-curdling scream. I'm supposed to run 13 miles tomorrow, and 3 miles Sunday. I'm already 83 miles behind in training, and that assumes a build off of a base of 15 miles a week. And this is the schedule they label the "bare-minimum" schedule.

After this morning, I've run a total of 3 miles in the last two months.

I arrived in Seattle last night, struggled to stay awake until 10pm. I hadn't slept in 22 hours since waking up at 8am London time in Kristin and Greg's flat. Despite that, jet lag pulled me out of bed at 4am this morning.

Jason has started his NY Marathon training, and he took me on a morning run around Queen Anne in the light Seattle rain. Rather, I held him back for half his run and then had to call it quits when he repeated the loop. I ran 3 miles at a glacial 9 minute/mile pace and nearly threw up a lung, confirming that cycling fitness translates into running fitness the way Babelfish translates German into English. Oh this marathon thing is going to be ugly, if it's even feasible.

In London, Kristin saw how flat my feet were, heard I was going to try and run the NY Marathon, and burst out into laughter. My body just wasn't built for long-distance running, as one doctor/runner told me after I had gone to him with pain in my knees, ankles, and shins. However, a positive mental outlook, rather than the sheer terror and disconsolation with which I'm approaching the marathon at this moment, is the first step. People on crutches have finished the NY Marathon, so I have no excuses.

This weekend I need to buy a pair of proper running shoes and some running clothes. I ran in a cotton shirt this morning, with an old pair of ratty tennis shoes with a hole where my right big toe could take in the views of Seattle. And so the first learning, besides the excruciating pain, is that cotton and ratty shoes are not ideal wet weather running gear.

Polls versus markets: which crowd is wiser?

The Electoral Vote Predictor, based on polling data from each state, currently has Kerry winning key swing states like Ohio and Florida to capture the election.

The Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM), cited in a wide range of texts as evidence of the predictive power of free, open, and thus efficient markets (IEF was most recently cited in The Wisdom of Crowds), has Bush ahead as Dubya's shares are outselling Kerry's by a bit ($0.52 for a share of Bush, $0.49 for a share of Kerry at my last check) in the 2004 US Presidential Winner Takes All Market.

Markets have slightly outperformed polls over time, as noted by this study from the IEF (PDF file). This tight and hotly contested election should be a great test to compare these two predictive methods.

Seinfeld Seasons 1-3 on DVD

The first three seasons of Seinfeld release on DVD Nov. 23. Amazon should have it up for order any hour now. Suggested retail price will be $199.95, or $5 per episode. Supposedly the video has been enhanced in high definition, whatever that means for a talking head television show.

Of course, you could own every episode ever on homemade DVD if you're really impatient.

Phelps...Thorpe...showdown

Other than the Cubs potentially making the playoffs, I can't think of another remaining 2004 sporting spectacle I'm looking forward to more than Ian Thorpe versus Michael Phelps in the 200m freestyle at the Summer Olympics. At a broader level, the Aussie and American men's swimming teams hate each other, so the overall showdown between the two countries will be awesome. In addition, it appears Phelps will get his shot at crazy eights after all.

Lots of alpha dogs in that pool in Athens, yeh.

£ > € > $

The dollar is weak. I felt its weakness in Paris, where a sandwich and a drink at Zagat's number one best buy restaurant, the sandwich shop Cosi, cost me about $15 U.S. Not a fortune by any stretch of the imagination, but the prices soared from there. I recall visiting Europe when the euro first went into circulation. Back then, the euro (€) and dollar were about equivalent.

Ah, the good old days.

If Parisian prices make New York's look like those of a flea market, London's prices do the same to those of Paris. The prices for coffee at Starbucks in London are just a bit higher than those in the States, but to compound the disparity the prices here are denominated in pounds, a currency which sounds heavy and carries its weight in dollars. A pound sterling (£) is worth nearly 2X a dollar, meaning a grande latte costs nearly $7. I don't even drink coffee and yet my mind recoils with horror.

If I lived in London or Paris for any stretch of time, I'd end up a Jean Valjean, haunting the sewers like some deranged pauper. Fortunately, I have a stash of Powerbars I brought for my cycling trip. I should be able to live off of those until my return to the States.

New Saunders short

A new George Saunders' short story in this week's New Yorker.

Discovery Cycling signs Popovych

U.S. Postal, soon to be Discovery Cycling, has signed Yaroslav Popovych to a 3 year contract beginning next season. The 24 year old is a future grand tour contender. Guillaume had told us that this move was rumored to be near, and Oleg, a fellow Russian, was excited at the possibility.

All the major cycling teams will need to beef up their rosters because of the new rules going into effect that will limit teams in the Tour de France to those who compete at all three grand tours. Since Lance will likely focus his efforts on only one of them (and bring lots of the teams' strongest cyclists with him), Discovery will need strong cyclists to contend in the other two tours. Popovych can race either the Tour or the Giro, whichever Lance turns down.

The hottest fashion accessory: LIVESTRONG

The hottest fashion accessory around the globe? The yellow LIVESTRONG armband being sold for $1 each to raise money for the fight against cancer. Nearly everyone in our tour group at the Tour de France had one, and many brought dozens to give away. If you didn't have one, you could have purchased one from vendors walking up and down the roads at every stage of the race.

I hear they're ubiquitous in the States as well, though I haven't been back to confirm it. Right now, every SKU for the armband is completely back ordered. As an alternative, you could purchase a $250 t-shirt and photo package.

Prithee, where be the A/C?

One thing I had forgotten about Europe but which I'm reminded of in these hot summer months: Europe has some sort of prejudice against air conditioning and ice cubes. I have yet to hear a good explanation why this is so. Last summer, during the heat wave that nearly crisped Lance Armstrong during a long time trial, thousands of elderly people in France perished. Maybe it's some perverse form of population control.

July would not be my first choice of months in which to visit Europe, but that's when the Tour de France is held, and so. It's perhaps the hottest month of the year in Europe, and after a day of cycling in the scorching heat and oppressive humidity, the last thing I want to come back to is a hotel room or apartment without air conditioning. But that's often the case.

France has improved a bit. I think all the hotel rooms I stayed in during the Tour had air conditioning this year, though the quality of said air conditioning units varied. Ice cubes, however, are still a scarce commodity.

"Des glassons?" I would plead, holding out my empty glass to the bartender.

"Non!"

It brought to mind Patrick Stewart as the maitre'd at L'Idiot in L.A. Story: "You zink you can hev zee duck weet a craydeet leemeet lahk zees? You cannot hev zee duck. You can hev zee cheeken."

The lack of air conditioning and ice cubes may explain why I'm eternally parched and dehydrated. I can't remember a moment when I haven't been thirsty since I arrived in Europe. Even when I'm bloated with water, I still feel like I've just walked out of the Sahara Desert. Cycling with only two water bottles was just not enough. I'd have to pause in the midst of my rides to dash into cafes to fill up.

The other night, Greg, Kristin, Peter, and I attended a performance of the Jerry Springer Opera. It was a muggy day, and I had been looking forward to a few hours of respite from the heat in a cool, air-conditioned theatre. Surely the theatre would have air conditioning.

Oh, what a naive fool was I! On stage, as Jerry Springer descended into hell, we were gasping for air in our own personal hell, sweat pouring down our heads and affixing us to our fabric seats in the oven that was the Cambridge Theater. Riding on the Metro or the Tube? Bring your own air. The public intercom at the Tube urges all passengers to bring a bottle of water aboard, and signs illustrate the dangers of the trapped air in the tunnels below, depicting the silhouette of a Londoner collapsed at the bottom of an escalator leading down into the Tube.

Though I can't explain the paucity of air conditioning in France and England, this peculiarity explains many other things. Why the French are so thin: they sweat off several pounds each day walking around town. Why the French spends hours upon hours sitting in cafes: they are trying to move as little as possible in an effort to avoid sweating. Why the parfumeries are at the ground floor of French department stores, and why they're some of the most massive parfumeries in the entire world: no explanation needed.

It got to the point where we began selecting restaurants that advertised "salle climatisee." Who can eat in a sauna? After all, I have to live up to the stereotypical image of American obesity, and I can't very well do it lolling about in a cafe, smoking cigarettes.

FOOTNOTE: What I need is one of these Avacore devices. I first saw them being tested by the Stanford football team at Stanford Stadium.

Comment spam

I tried to ignore the increasing flow of comment spam on my site, but the annoyance surpassed the threshold. I was flooded with over a hundred comment spams today, and so I've had to take a few steps to address the problem. I installed Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist and will force users to preview and approve their comments moving forward. I haven't gone so far as to install MT 3.0 yet to require TypeKey registration, but if these steps don't work, that won't be far behind. Spending an hour deleting comment spam is a slow burn.

I'm reminded of Eric Stoltz's speech in Pulp Fiction about what they should do to people who mess with another man's car: "They should be f***ing killed. No trial, no jury, straight to execution."

Sounds about right.

More from the Tour in 04

More of Paris

Nomaa

Even as out of touch with the news from home as I am, I couldn't miss the Cubs' acquisition of Nomar Garciaparra over here in London. It was the lead sports story in the International Herald Tribune and the international USA Today. I nabbed the last copy of both from the local newsstand, bought a tomato basil pasty from Marylebone station, and rushed back to Peter's flat to dissect the deal.

Since I arrived in Europe, the Cubs have dropped out of contention for their division title. I'm not sure what happened, but the Cardinals went on a ridiculous winning streak to end up with the best record in baseball, leaving the Cubs to choke on their fumes. At this point in the season, the Cubs only realistic chance to make the playoffs is to win the NL wild card.

The Cubs primary offensive shortcoming is at SS, and there were several names bandied about as likely trade targets: Omar Vizquel, Rich Aurilia, Orlando Cabrera, and Nomar Garciaparra. Nomar seemed the least likely as the Red Sox were rumored to want Matt Clement in return. Then I heard they wanted Angel Guzman and Felix Pie, too high a price for a shortstop rental.

At the same time, Omar Vizquel and Rich Aurilia were over-the-hill offensive liability. I was glad the Cubs stayed away from them. Likewise, I was not high on Orlando Cabrera, who parlayed one solid all around season in 2001 into heaps of unjustified praise. You just knew that even as a 29 year old he was due for a serious offensive regression this year, and to boot, he had chronic back injuries that had reduced his defense from Gold Glove in 2001 to just above average in 2002 and 2003. His offense at SS is average at best, and this year it's atrocious.

So I was tickled to discover the Cubs had somehow obtained not just Garciaparra and cash but also a solid outfield prospect in Matt Murton for not much more than Alex Gonzalez and some middling prospects. The Cubs are woefully short on position player prospects, so adding a left fielder who hits for both power and average is a bonus.

Garciaparra is on the downside of his career, a purported clubhouse cancer in Boston, and chronically injured. An Achilles tendon injury has reduced his range to way below average. However, he's still a huge offensive upgrade over the Cubs sad-hitting trio of Alex Gonzalez, Ramon Martinez, and Rey Ordonez. His defensive shortcomings are much less of a liability on the Cubs since their pitching staff leads the major leagues in strikeouts. And already Cubs fans and the media are welcoming him in a way that must seem like release from prison after the brutality of the Boston media. Maybe it will prove a win-win for both the Red Sox and the Cubs since Nomar was likely to leave Boston after the season in free agency. The Red Sox are sacrificing offense for defense (Mientkiewicz and Cabrera are above average fielders, below average hitters for their respective positions) and the Cubs are sacrificing defense for offense which fits their team philosophy in recent years.

I liked Brendan Harris, but he wasn't an A-List prospect. Francis Beltran throws hard but has little command, and these days those are a dime a dozen. Alex Gonzalez was an albatross. Lefty starter Justin Jones showed lots of potential, but I don't agonize much over trading injury-prone pitching prospects at the triple-A level. Most never amount to much.

The Cubs still need to make the playoffs (at the moment, they're two games out in the wild card chase), but if they do, they set up as a dangerous wild card team, just like they were last year. With a pitching staff of Prior, Wood, Zambrano, Clement, and Maddux, a random alignment of the stars could be devastating on an opposing lineup, especially one heavy with right-handed hitters. The Cubs offensive lineup is stacked with free-swinging, homer happy batters who can all be pitched to, but they're also liable to hang four or five homers a game on a starter having an off-day.

I don't always agree with what Jim Hendry and Dusty Baker do, but after waiting since 1908 for a World Series victory, a win-now strategy is nothing Cubs fans should complain about. I'll go against character and see all this as filling the glass half full.