Happy birthday Juli!

posted by Eugene Wei at 11:30 PM | link

Yesterday night, went to the symphony with Bean and heard Yefim Bronfman play the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #3 with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. The Rach Three, as its known, was made famous to the public at large in the movie Shine, in which a young David Helfgott goes crazy under the pressure of an oppressive father and his attempt to master this insanely difficult piano concerto. The Rach 3 is to piano concertos what Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto is to violin concertos--the most famously difficult major concerto for each instrument. Only virtuosos need apply. The first few violinists who attempted to play the Tchaikovsky actually found it too difficult.

I love Rachmaninoff's piano concertos. They're grand, unabashedly romantic and lyrical, which is also the reason many dislike them. Actually, his second piano concerto is more lyrical than the third--it just doesn't have a movie about it to back it up. But most fans of classical piano know and love it.

As I watched Bronfman sweat as his fingers pounded the keyboard of the Steinway grand, the music conveyed much of what I felt sitting there in that seat at that moment. Work is supremely challenging right now, so I could sympathize with Bronfman trying to master all the notes while still conveying the emotional theme. Listen to it sometime and see how you feel--that's how I felt yesterday when I was sitting there.

The symphony also played the Shostakovich Symphony #5, which is the most famous of his fifteen symphonies. Program notes point out that the symphony was well-received by Stalin, who had put Shostakovich under a lot of heat for his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for its criticism of the Communist government. Ironically, the fifth symphony was a blatant critique of Stalin's regime, but the dictator was too musically dense to notice it and appreciated its Russian pomp and circumstance. I hope if I ever ascend to a position of power that I'm bright enough to recognize satire in all forms.

You wouldn't think Seattle has a large Russian population, but every one seems to come out every year to hear whichever Russian orchestra visits Benaroya Hall. They love their native musicians, too. Always lots of standing ovations, too many to count, and the night concluded with two encores, movements from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

It reminded me of a concert I attended in New York several years ago. I was in Manhattan on a business trip with Jason, and during my time off I looked up my friend Hanh, and with some free time I realized that Vladimir Spivakov was in town with Russian National Orchestra. That night the orchestra played the Shostakovich Symphony #5, and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Spivakov himself played the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, and as an encore, he played this solo on the violin, a slow piece, unbelievably beautiful. To this day, I wonder what that piece was. Hanh wanted to know as well, but no one could place it.

If anyone knows, please let me know.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:28 PM | link

The snow was insanely deep at Whistler. In fact, it was too deep. It was cold, but the snow was both dry and thick. Very difficult to turn, and when you fell, you just sank in about two feet. Very difficult to get up on a board when you try to push off with your arms and they just sink into the snow. The first few runs were frustrating. Also, despite the heavy snowfall, the main runs were icy, bumpy, and that meant a hard day on the knees. I was bounced around all day. But despite all that, and the sub zero temps, I had a fun day out there. Snowboarding is almost always fun for me now that I have a better feel for the sport.

The luck: I hiked up to Spanky's Ladder with Sang to try it out for the first time. A run named Spanky's Ladder is definitely intimidating, and looking down from the top was a gut check. Sang skiied ahead towards a supposed chute called Sapphire, and I strapped in and tried to follow. Halfway down the hill, the front strap on my right binding fell off, and I lost control and did a face plant. I was frozen and also buried in the snow, but more troubling, I couldn't find my strap. I couldn't see Sang, who was down below a ridge downhill. Uphill all I could see was deep snow. The strap had to have been eaten by the deep powder. If it was gone, I'd have to hike back up a hill in waist nearly waist deep snow, and I was not only tired but frozen.

But I didn't have many other options. I managed to unstrap, then I began taking one step after another, counting two seconds between each step to catch my breath, back up the hill, retracing my path. Miraculously, I found the strap about 15 feet up. But I looked at it and the screw had fallen out. How I would find a half-inch screw in all that snow was beyond me, but then I spotted a small dark spot a few feet away. It was the screw.

Another 10 minute hike down to Sang, and I managed to put the strap back on with my snowboard tool. The run down from there was particularly satisfying as I basked in the glow of my good fortune. If I hadn't found the strap and the screw, you'd be reading lots of !@#$%%*&'s right now.

I can barely lift my head, my neck is so sore. I couldn't do a single crunch if I tried, my stomach is so sore from trying to pick myself up out of the powder so many times. The last run of the day, I tried to tackle some ice hard moguls and I actually managed to carve a few in sequence. What fun!
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:06 AM | link

I enjoy reading Salon because they don't pull any punches. Here's an article saying Stephen King is over the hill as a writer.

Most artists seem to hit some peak and then start to head downhill. Maybe King has hit his. When's the last time Coppola or Spielberg made a great film (hint: Apocalypse Now (1979) and Schindler's List (1993))? Hey, everybody's a critic. I haven't even generated anything of note, though some would argue my first short story in intro fiction writing was my peak and ever since it's been nothing but a series of mediocre business e-mails.

It's true, though. Most directors don't end their career with their best film, most authors' last books aren't their best.

Let it ...., Let it ...., Let it ....

At this moment, the Whistler Blackcomb homepage headline reads "75 cm (2.5 feet) in the last 24 hours". Heaven help us. Canada here I come.


posted by Eugene Wei at 1:15 PM | link

It was David and Lauri's last day at Amazon today. Two of the smartest people I've ever met and worked with. They're perhaps the two people most responsible for what people know as the Amazon.com shopping experience, from the shopping cart process/order pipeline to the store design to the way you navigate. All of that. They were smart not just in the conventional business sense of being smart, but they were smart about the web and website design. In fact, they're probably two of the smartest people about e-commerce website design in the entire world. To top it all off, they're also just two of the genuine good guys in white hats.

We posted a single page on Amazon.com's website that will live forever to honor David's accomplishments, but really the tribute to both of them is the website itself. It will be strange walking into the office on Monday, knowing they aren't there.

One of Stanford's own

Stanford graduate Daniel Pearl was killed by his Pakistani kidnappers. The gruesome murder was videotaped, and the tape was sent to the U.S. as evidence. Here are two articles about him from the paper where he worked, The Wall Street Journal.

A Selection of Daniel Pearl's Work

Reporter Daniel Pearl Is Dead, Killed by His Captors in Pakistan

There isn't much I can add to the discussion. It's a very sad story as he leaves behind a pregnant wife. Strangely, The West Wing did an episode two weeks ago in which a reporter was kidnapped and killed, a tragic foreshadowing of this event.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:50 AM | link

Are there any figure skating duos that aren't also couples off the ice? In what other sport are so many partners also lovers off the playing field? It must be because they have to practice so much together. Most couples I see who are doubles partners are at each other's throats.

Is there any sport more agonizing to watch than women's figure skating? Of all the winter sports, it's the one that I can't bear to miss and can't bear to watch. Maybe because I'm always waiting for someone to fall. Is there any other Olympic sport where the mistakes are so obvious and so frequent? In the long program it seems like the majority of skaters fall or mess up at least once on a jump. You don't see every other downhill skier wipe out or every other luger fall of the luge.

Maybe it's because the skaters all look like they're twelve, and it seems cruel to put such young girls under such pressure. Are figure skaters getting younger? The Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Nancy Kerrigan, Katarina Witt crowd--what happened to them? Or am I just getting older and everyone looks younger? I have to think that it is a sport for the young. You want to be young enough to not feel the pressure, and just old enough to have enough experience to know what you need to do.

The free skate competition was the highlight of the Winter Olympics tonight. Sarah Hughes was amazing and deserving of the gold. Poor Michelle--I think the pressure got to her, and it's a shame that someone who has been so good for so long couldn't add a gold medal to her accomplishments.

The rules for Olympic eligibility should be revised. Why are professionals playing in ice hockey and yet Tara and Kristi aren't here competing in figure skating? That's the only way they could have improved on this evening.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:55 PM | link

I watched Apolo win the gold after the Korean Kim was disqualified for blocking. After doing the slo-mo ReplayTV thing on it a few times, I think the disqualification was unjust. Apolo got the home field advantage there. It's a tough thing to say, because he's a Seattle native. And he made an awesome pass of 3 skaters to get into second. But Kim's block wasn't nearly as blatant as all the papers are reporting, and I think he had a right to be where he was. Apolo waited a bit too long to make his move, and Kim was skating a tight line to force Apolo to go outside for the pass.

Apolo sold it with his wild arm gesture.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:50 AM | link

I've been meaning to write an article about money management, because it's something I've been thinking about a lot, and because most people I know are at that point in life when they need to figure it out. There are a couple ways to go. You can hire a money manager and pay them money to manage your money, or you can try and pick stocks yourself. Both are popular approaches, and both are really bad ideas for just about everyone.

I spent a number of years out of undergrad picking and buying stocks. I was a big fan of The Motley Fool, I read just about every book on investing out there, from Benjamin Graham to Warren Buffett to Peter Lynch to Burton Malkiel. I built spreadsheet models in which I keyed in income statements and balance sheets off annual reports and 10-Ks and 10-Qs, listened to any available public conference calls, subscribed to the Investors Business Daily and The Wall Street Journal, etc. Most importantly, I used all that info to invest money in individual stocks.

And I did alright. Over the years, I've come out ahead. But I'm smart enough to recognize I wasn't necessarily all that smart. For the amount of time I put in, I earned a bit more than I might have if I'd put all my money in an S&P 500 stock index, but a lot of that resulted from my interest in and overinvestment in technology stocks, which were hot. And what a time suck! There's a small part of me that still thinks if I spent enough time, I could pick a few winners. But it would have to be my sole endeavor in life, and who wants to spend their days and nights picking stocks? Seriously, it was a sad hobby. Spending time trying to make more money--that's what bankers do, and I bet most of them have mid-life crises.

Yeah, but aren't bankers wealthy, you might ask? What's wrong with making a few bucks? I have nothing against wanting to take care of you and your own. There are ways to do it, and it doesn't require a lot of time or effort, and for 99% of the world it will make more of your money than almost any other strategy, including those which require a ton of your time. You don't have to hire a money manager, who would charge you thousands of dollars to do roughly the same thing.

This strategy is based on Modern Portfolio Theory, an idea which won a Nobel Prize. It recognizes that the bulk of your expected investment return is easily traced to a few very controllable factors. I've been using this strategy for a while now and it works great. I don't spend much time worrying about it every year. Picking individual stocks? I gave that up when I started working at Amazon, a job which more than fills my days. No money manager takes my money, which is great, because I have enough bills to pay.

All it takes is some basic understanding of asset allocation. I'll write more about it tomorrow, and I'll even list all the index funds and other financial instruments which I use to implement the strategy. If you don't believe me, I'll list the three or four investment books which back me up. They're the only ones you'll ever need to purchase on investing again. And someday, when you're retired and getting a tan on the beach while on a vacation that you paid for using my strategy, you'll think, "That was the only piece of good advice I ever got from that bum."

So check back in, and I'll try to summarize all you need to know in the next week or two. One of my goals this year is to try and make my website a bit more valuable to visitors, and this is phase one: make y'all lotsa money.

By the way, on the topic of economics, most baseball fans think a salary cap would be a good idea, especially since it seems to drive competitiveness in football. The folks at Baseball Prospectus point out why that's a fallacy. Smart guys over there, and they just published their latest Baseball Prospectus, something I buy every year.

posted by Eugene Wei at 10:52 PM | link

Well, Jason decided to stay at Amazon after all. For once, Monday was a good way to start the week. Craziness.
posted by Eugene Wei at 3:37 PM | link

Supposedly, Wrigley gum modified Big Red in late 2000 to make its cinnamon flavor more intense and longer lasting. I haven't chewed any Wrigley gum in years. Can anyone confirm that? Come to think of it, I rarely chew gum anymore. I wonder why. Do kids still chew gum? Looking at myself, I'd think the chewing gum industry was shrinking in a big way. All the gums today seem to be sugar-free, teeth-cleansing, healthy gums. When I was young, I was all about the massive piece of gum with a liquid sugar gel center that would probably rot your teeth right off, or a giant pack of shredded Big League Chew that I carried in the back pocket of my baseball jersey.

One of my resolutions for 2002: give up sugar substitutes. No more diet soda. Those sugar substitutes are a bad idea. They give lab rats cancer, and I'm not a lab rat, but I'll ride my bike an extra ten minutes to shed the sugar from real soda.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:04 AM | link

Humorous and popular weblog-linked article in The Guardian about who the Dido demographic is. I took the test and I guess I qualify with 14 out of 25 CDs.

I'm not in my 30's, but damn, if I'm listening to the same music that these thirty-somethings are listening to then I may have to start hanging out with some kids. I have two more years, damn it. Must...hang...on...to...cool.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:43 PM | link

Last week, here are some search terms entered in two search engines that drove traffic to my site:
Altavista
3: naked boys
1: skywalker
1: encore patch windows xp
1: women wearing sexy shoes
1: +"vanilla sky" +soundtrack
1: +skinnydip1.jpg
1: stripping naked
1: adobe premiere 6 crack
1: +"lord of the rings" +blooper +car

Google
6: res://c:\winnt\system32\shdoclc.dll/preview.dlg
3: "halle berry" and "bootleg"
2: photos of dr. sleep movie= goran visnjic
2: follow+unicornio
2: shdoclc.dll/preview.dlg
2: netflix case study
2: a knight's tale movie poem
2: "brotherhood of the wolf" shot on hd
2: eugene wei
1: teaching english in nerja spain

What it tells me is AltaVista really is a crappier search engine than Google. Seriously. I have no idea how some of those search terms would lead to my site.

"women wearing sexy shoes"?!? "naked boys"?!? Seriously, I'm running the wrong kind of site. I sense a big business opportunity. I should run pop-up windows featuring Netflix ads or all those other silly ads that I close without even glancing at what it is I'm closing. The proliferation of pop-ups must be causing, in aggregate, a lot more mouse clicks across the world. Which means more carpal tunnel syndrome, more health insurance claims...the costs of pop-ups is larger than we think.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:27 PM | link

I wished lots of people happy Valentine's Day today, but let's be real. It's an empty gesture. Those who will have a happy one already know who they are, and those who won't have a happy one know who they are as well. And it has nothing to do with whether or not you've got that special someone. It's a state of mind.
posted by Eugene Wei at 8:27 PM | link

I read this on IMDb:

Burt Reynolds is gearing up to play God on TV. The movie veteran has been called in to help boost the ratings on spooky sci-fi show The X-Files .

Well, that show has gone to crap anyway, might as well go for broke. I still believe that the most frightening thing in Deliverance may not have been those rapist back-country hill billies but Burt Reynolds in that black rubber vest. It's one look that might truly never become fashionable, ever. To think he used to be a sex symbol.

But he was great in Boogie Nights, playing a porn director. Figures.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:22 PM | link

So this is mLife. Mobile life, as enabled by AT&T Wireless.

Frankly, I'd just settle for better coverage on the AT&T cellular network.

And "listen to live play by play sports"? Isn't that called radio?
posted by Eugene Wei at 2:15 AM | link

This is a clever idea to put telemarketers out of business.

Today, I usually pick up the phone and can tell immediately it's a telemarketer. There's no immediate answer when I say "Hello?" because autodialer on the other end is dialing up 10 numbers and guessing that only a fraction will answer, so no operator is immediately available to speak with me. So I hang up. The other tell-tale sign is when someone asks for me by my full name and butchers my last name. Then I tell them that the person they're looking for left the country to do soul-searching on a remote island off the coast of South America and doesn't intent to return.

Having a cell phone helps, because I can assume most of the calls on my home phone are from phone solicitors. Essentially my home phone number is like my Hotmail e-mail account--it's a junk collection repository, a fake identity of sorts. Seems sad that we have to resort to that at all, doesn't it?

So I'm going to try this Hold On Please idea instead and try and raise the cost structure for a few telemarketers.
posted by Eugene Wei at 1:51 AM | link

The nominations are in.

Naomi Watts got robbed of a best actress nomination. Mulholland Drive got only Lynch's best director nomination. Poor Lynch. His films will probably never get their due from the Academy, but somehow I don't think he really cares. His was probably the best film of 2001.

A Beautiful Mind don't deserve a best picture nomination. It was just alright, nothing special. In a few years no one will be talking about it anymore.

Gene Hackman deserved a best actor nomination. He was the best thing in Heist, the best thing in The Royal Tenenbaums. He's an amazing actor for the way he takes a role and makes it something that is both his own and yet apart from what's on the page.

Waking Life got robbed of a best animated film nomination. It was a better film than both Shrek and Monsters Inc., and thought I haven't seen Jimmy Neutron, I highly doubt it was better than Waking Life.

Amelie got a best cinematography nomination? I didn't think the Paris in Amerlie was anywhere nearly as charming as the one in real life, and the cinematography wasn't anything special.

There You'll Be from Pearl Harbor got a best song nomination? That's one of the worst pop songs I heard all year.

In the Mood for Love didn't even get a best foreign picture nomination. It was a far better film than Amelie, which was fun but also manipulative fluff.

When's the last time that the Best Documentary category didn't include a single documentary about the Holocaust? This is the first time I can remember since tracking the Oscars closely. Just an interesting sidenote.

Well, at least we didn't see Harry Potter all over the place.

Whoopi Goldberg as host--I would have preferred Steve Martin again, or even better, Jim Carrey. The Academy would never let Jim Carrey host, and that's a damn shame, because he'd be the funniest of them all.

Griping about Oscar nominations is a pointless exercise, though. Look at the demographic profile of the average Academy member and then you'll realize that the nominations every year make perfect sense. Just tune in to see what the movie stars wear, and continue to watch the movies you love. Don't confuse the Oscars for any objective measure of a film's worth. I wish there was a movie awards show that had a younger voting demographic than the Oscars, with its old Academy members. But the MTV Movie Awards are too young, and the other awards shows out there (Golden Globes, AFI) are no better than the Oscars and are in someways worse since they don't have anywhere near the viewership and pomp and circumstance which make the Oscars the spectacular voyeuristic event it is.

Seriously, if they used to have classical music awards back in the 17th and 18th centuries, would people like Mozart and Beethoven just win every year? And if they didn't, would they really care?
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:47 AM | link

John Perry Barlow is an interesting guy. Wrote songs for the Dead, now is a pundit on the whole arena of intellectual property. He sees modern copyright law as stifling the sharing which has been a key underpinning of civilization and its advancement.

Something that may help is Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig's upcoming launch of Creative Commons. I don't know enough about the details to judge whether or not it's workable, but it sounds like a huge improvement over the current situation, in which you have music labels and movie studios spending millions of dollars litigating to maintain their right to overcharge for CDs.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:25 AM | link

Yes, today was Chinese New Year (well, I guess it was yesterday now). Also Mardi Gras. Didn't get to do the traditional Chinese dinner out, as I had to work tonight and fit in the Amazon basketball game. Y'all should go out and have some Chinese food, though, and celebrate New Year on the lunar calendar.

When growing up, I never knew when my parents' birthday was, because it was based on the lunar calendar, so it was on a different date every year. I've finally realized that my dad's birthday is four days after Chinese New Year, so happy early birthday, dad.

Speaking of Chinese stuff, this freaked me out.

I didn't realize what the whole "Mardi Gras beads" deal was until this year. Have I just been oblivious, or did this never get publicity in the past?

Speed skating is a beautiful sport to watch. Someday I'd like to try it. Someday, I should try Mardi Gras in New Orleans as well.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:18 AM | link

Project Greenlight was a good marketing ploy, on top of being an interesting show. Seriously, lots of aspiring screenwriters are out there watching, and how many will see Stolen Summer just to see what they might be able to do given the right break? Lots.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:02 PM | link

Jordan was being guarded by Peja of the Kings the other day, and Jordan pulled the old palm the ball in the right hand, draw a huge circle in the air with the ball to show the defender you're in control, then step up and hit the jumper in his face. Sweet.

Jordan has been very successful in his comeback, proving his doubters wrong yet again. The only big problem I spot in his game is a loss of quickness and occasional flatness in his jump shot. He's still strong and offensively capable, using an assortment of fakes and moves to get his shots off. He's not able to take over games as he once did, but he's a leader.

The thing about Jordan as a guard is his strength. Probably the only player in the league today who physically resembles Jordan is Vince Carter. Big ups, very strong, good jump shot. Kobe has Jordan's fade away and jump shot but lacks Jordan's strength. Same with T-Mac. But Carter takes too many jump shots. He needs to be fearless, like Jordan, to take it to the hole. And he needs better footwork and desire on defense.

Kobe is the closest to Jordan in terms of PR saavy. Makes sure he comes off as likable, maximizing his endorsement appeal. This is in contrast to his teammate Shaq, who is probably one of the most dislikable dudes in the NBA. He's a terrible interview and seems like a petulant kid. Vince is all frowns. He should smile a little more off court. Kobe looks like he's having fun playing hoops. Vince and Shaq look like they're trying to prove something to someone who insulted them.
posted by Eugene Wei at 2:43 AM | link

Someone threw a small little surprise party to honor Jason on Friday. Pretty soon he'll be off on life after Amazon.

We roasted him big-time, and he took it like a good sport. I've always thought that roasts looked like good fun, and now I can confirm that it's true. I don't even think it would be all that bad to be roasted. Who was it that said all PR is good PR? The difference between a roast and pure mockery is that roasts are built on some general affection.

Having a good manager is perhaps the most important element to any employee's happiness, right up there with quality of work and pay and all that. A good manager should make it easy for you to do what you need to do. Jason definitely put me on the right path and pointed my career in the right direction. The most important thing I learned from him was to reduce all the business problems around me to a few core, simple challenges.

Some others:
--Hire a few strong people, give them some hard problems, a little guidance, and let them crank. Half the battle is getting the right people in place, and don't settle for anything less than that.
--Work harder than the next guy. And the previous guy. Work harder than anyone around you. There are two types of people in the world. People who make things happen, and people who are trying really hard not to make anything happen, or allow anything to happen. Be one of the former, and work with those types of people. Fight your way past all the others.
--Business and personal are two separate worlds. The person you enjoy sharing a beer with may not be the person you want to work with. Love and respect are two different things.

Actually, that thing about working hard--I've known that for a long time, but it's taken on a much broader scope for me. I've realized that the most productive people in the people don't necessarily enjoy the work any more than anyone else, but they have a higher tolerance for it. Like endurance athletes and their capacity for physical pain. And they work smarter. And I've realized how many people in the world aren't willing to work hard, not because they're lazy, but because they don't have the integrity to do so. Productive people don't cut corners because they realize that they're hurting themselves in the long run. It all comes full circle somehow.

Man, I'm being preachy. I'm not sure why. At Jason's roast people said I was talking to seek catharsis, but actually I think I was just indulging my inner stage hog. Secretly I'm a big ham.

Anyway, back to Jason. I did the math. I'm the employee he's managed the longest in his life, and he's been my manager longer than any other. That makes me a lucky guy, though don't tell him that. I really didn't care what my job title was the whole time he managed me. Jason and I used to laugh because you meet all these people in the business world who are so stuck on their job titles. As soon as they get one they like, it's in their sig file, on their business card, and in every other sentence of theirs. Respect the man, not the job title. I learned from Jason to try as much as possible never to tell anyone your job title. People can tell from how you handle yourself and your communications exactly what level of respect they should give you.

It will be tough for the company to lose him, and I'm losing a good manager. We retired his e-mail address (I won't post it here, but if you know him you know it; if it seems like I'm vague about names and things in my weblog it's because there are some crazy yahoos out their in the world, and some of them have web access, and I don't want any of them stalking my friends and family; so, no full names, addresses). No one will ever have that e-mail address at Amazon. It's like retiring a jersey number in sports, which is a metaphor Jason would appreciate.

I suspect that Jason and I will cross paths again in the future.
posted by Eugene Wei at 2:32 AM | link

Something is off with me. I feel like I've been sick for months now. I'm getting these random dizzy spells, and it's difficult to bring everything into focus. It's like being drunk without drinking. Maybe it's time to pay the doc a visit.

I pride myself on never getting sick, but last week was brutal and I barely survived with just one day off from work. Sleeping is difficult, which is an odd thing for me. I realized this because we had our company party tonight and I felt as if I was in a dream state the whole time. Everything was fuzzy, and instead of being inside myself I felt as if I was the puppeteer, pulling the strings to move my arms and legs. But to pull enough strings to get everything coordinated was too much for my head, so I'd focus on dancing around and my vision and hearing would go, but if I focused on those senses I'd have a hard time moving my body.

Actually, I know where the puppeteer analogy comes from. I was wearing a tie, or half wearing a tie, and everyone was yanking me around with it. I felt like a puppet.

Maybe I have a low red blood cell count. I'm not sure what that feels like, but I imagine it would feel like this. Maybe I just need to go out and chop some firewood or something.
posted by Eugene Wei at 1:56 AM | link

They should take some of those thieving Enron executives out back to the shed and put a belt to them. One reason to have friends with high standards and children to parent is that you shouldn't be able to look yourself in the mirror if you commit crimes against humanity.

White collar crimes like corporate fraud and deceit don't evoke the same visceral disgust as crimes like murder, but these Enron execs have caused a world of hurt, for their employees, in the economy, in the stock market... They have people questioning the accounting practices of all sorts of companies, even those who are honest about their numbers. Shame on them. They should spend the rest of their free lives serving humanity, or we should banish them to some other country. Instead, they're getting bonuses that add up to more than most honest people would make in several lifetimes. And some of them are getting jobs again? How do you hire one of those execs in good conscience?

I watched some footage of their appearance before Congress. Smug bastards. If I'm driving and I see one of them crossing the road it will be a miracle if I miss.
posted by Eugene Wei at 1:43 AM | link

Okay, time to release my list. I haven't seen Monster's Ball or In the Bedroom yet, but hey, I'm not a professional movie critic, I do the best I can to catch everything supposedly worth seeing. My list, in no particular order:

Lord of the Rings

A faithful adaptation of the book, a grand time at the movies, the most fun I had at a movie all year. People who complain about how the movie ends obviously don't understand the concept of a trilogy. I was excited, given Peter Jackson's previous work, but it still exceeded my hopes.

Mulholland Drive

David Lynch's best film yet. I've often thought that film would be the best art form to capture the way in which dreams convey meaning. That particularly abstract yet totally understandable Freudian dreamscape. Well, Lynch has tried in the past, and it's been hit or miss. Some of his movies have struck me as just plain weird. But Mulholland Drive is weird, yet it conveys so much about Los Angeles and Hollywood and the threats that lurk there.

Waking Life

The most groundbreaking animated film of the year. Forget Shrek and Monsters Inc. Innovative in its animation technique, in which animators used computers to draw over live action film sequences. In doing so, the movie's artists actually reinforced the ideas being discussed with the animation itself. It's also a film about ideas, which is difficult to pull off, and what helps is that the ideas themselves are intriguing. Richard Linklater is a very talented, intelligent filmmaker. How many directors can claim to have as diverse a set of films as Waking Life and Dazed and Confused on their resume?

In the Mood for Love

Some people will find Wong Kar Wai to be too much of a stylist. Frankly, he treats movies as an art form, and I love it. The cinematography, music, and acting are all aesthetically manipulative and plain beautiful. As tyrannical a director as, say Woody Allen, but with a much more refined aesthetic sensibility.

Moulin Rouge

Many people see this film as a revival of the musical, but musicals have been popular on Broadway for years. I personally didn't find the popularity of Moulin Rouge to be surprising. What is original is Baz's ability to cross-reference love songs from throughout the years in a non-intrusive, meaningful way. It's a film that captures the core emotional value of each of the songs and films it quotes, yet at the same time it subtly subverts them all. In a way, with an art form with as long a history as the movie musical, that's the only way to break new ground. It's like trying to direct a film noir in this day and age. It's such an established genre that it's tough to break new ground (it's a challenge the Coen brothers took on in making The Man Who Wasn't There).

Oh yeah, and Ewan and Nicole were surprisingly good singers. Nicole Kidman hasn't played too many purely sympathetic parts in her career, but especially given her personal travails this year, she's very convincing here.

Memento

A clever, haunting film. Okay, so the idea of following a story backwards in time isn't wholly original, but in this case it takes on added meaning because it helps us to empathize with what Guy Pearce's character is experiencing with his short-term memory loss. We, like Leonard, learn about what's happening as we go. We think we have an advantage over Leonard; we can remember more than he can since we don't have short-term memory loss. However, since we're seeing the movie backwards, we're no better off than he is with his tattoos and notes, which are from the past. We are moving back in time, he's moving forward, and we think we'll meet somewhere in the middle. When the film ends we realize we may be no better off than Leonard is, and he may actually have more peace of mind.

Christopher Nolan's first film, The Following, experiments with the same concept--showing a film out of order to maintain a sense of mystery and to provide us with a fresh perspective on a film, but in that film it's not nearly as meaningful a mechanism.

Ghost World

Those of us who are clever will laugh at the cultural satire in this film, most of it spearheaded by the sharp tongue of Thora Birch in a commanding performance. But we'll probably also wince at the loneliness of some of the obsessive characters, like Steve Buscemi's Seymour, because in them we recognize our own solitary compulsions. Terry Zwigoff doesn't put these characters on a pedestal or demean them. The closing shot is poetic.

Ocean's Eleven

Not every "best of" list needs a guilty pleasure, but this will be mine. It's not a great movie, especially given Soderbergh's talents, but it's a lot of damn fun. The biggest problem with the film is that not everyone in the ensemble cast gets enough screen time. But it's a movie all about movie stars being movie stars, and Soderbergh makes a few of them, in particular George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Elliot Gould, sparkle and shine. Every now and then, we need to be reminded why paparazzi chase them around instead of hounding us, and movies like this remind me why. Big movie stars are magnetic, funny, sexy.

What's up with Julia Roberts, though? She walks funny.


So that's my list. One other thing that most of these film have in common--great soundtracks. I love movie soundtracks. Music is a big part of movies for me.

All in all, it turned out to be an innovative year in the movies. Most of these films on my list were groundbreaking in one way or another, and those that weren't were just plain good.

If I had to move to the next tier of movies from 2001, I'd include the following. These would be honorable mentions, I guess. Good movies, worth watching, but all flawed in one way or another.

A Beautiful Mind
The Royal Tenenbaums
Black Hawk Down
The Deep End
The Others
American Pie II
The Score
Shrek
A.I.
Sexy Beast
The Road Home
61*
Donnie Darko
Joy Ride
Amelie
The Man Who Wasn't There
Heist
Monster's Inc.
Bridget Jones Diary
Training Day

So, did I miss anything?
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:45 PM | link

There are few feuds more entertaining than those between
authors and authors, authors and critics. For one thing,
generally the quality of writing is high, so the insults are
particularly vicious. Take this letter by Caleb Carr to one
of his critics from Salon.com. Man. That's some real heat.
Not too different, I guess, from rap wars, like that between
Jay Z and Nas. Some other entertaining feuds:
Tom Wolfe versus John Updike/Norman Mailer/John Irving
Salman Rushdie versus John Le Carre
Paul Theroux vs V.S. Naipaul

Writers are generally arrogant, highly insecure.

The thing with Google and the web these days--some topic
strikes your mind, you can always find some article about
it on the web. It's damn hard being original these days.

These feuds and rivalries--I enjoy following them. I'd like
to think I don't enjoy actually participating in them, being
the generally peaceful guy I am. But, over the years, I've
started to realize that you're probably not living a life worth
living unless you're offending someone somewhere. As long
as you're aggravating the right people, you're probably
doing a good thing. I sense some more conflict in my
future this year. My sleeves are rolled up.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:35 PM | link

The theme of the day. I feel sick, congested. My mind is
cloudy. Work is busy and, well, congested. Not a fun
week. What is up with my immune system? It's getting
a bad annual review this year.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:08 PM | link

Bryan Buckley was the subject of an article in last week's
NYTimes Magazine. It was timely because he has directed
a lot of the most popular commercials around, and it was
Superbowl Sunday, the world's largest stage for commercials.

He has done a lot of the ESPN Sportscenter commercials,
which are hilarious, as well as the ETrade commercials
featuring the monkey, and the Monster.com commercial
featuring the children saying things like, "I want to claw
my way up to middle management."

The big question: are his commercials effective advertisements?
There's no doubt they get people's attention. I went to
Dan's house for the latter bit of the Superbowl and the
folks there all remembered the ETrade commercial with
the monkey. Most guys I know are familiar with Buckley's
ESPN commercials.

Personally, I'm not sure they're effective as advertisements.
Only if you assume that any press is good press, as is
commonly sad in the world of PR. But advertisements can
be memorable and convince you that you need something.
It's not easy to do, and most commercials just glaze my
eyes over, but it doesn't mean it can't be achieved. If you're
a company and you're paying for one of these $3 million
dollar commercials on television, you really have to ask if
there isn't another way to make just as many people aware
of your brand name in a more cost effective way. If you're
going to pay that much, aim for more than just raw
brand recall among your audience.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:05 PM | link

Some footage from Entertainment Tonight from the next
Matrix film. As expected, lots of "Keanu versus lots of bad guys"
fight scenes, and some weapon play using old school Asian
death instruments. Nothing revolutionary if you've seen any
old wuxia films from Asia, but what was original about the
first Matrix film, and what hopefully will be original about
the subsequent two films, is the combination of elements that
are otherwise unoriginal. Oh, that and the camerawork,
which allowed the camera angle to move independently
of the dimension of time. Though that had been done in
the Gap swing commercials already. Okay, maybe the
most original thing about the Matrix films is that Keanu
Reeves' limited acting range doesn't cripple the film.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:55 PM | link

Best movies of 2001

My picks:
Lord of the Rings
Mulholland Drive
Waking Life
In the Mood for Love
Moulin Rouge
Memento
Ocean's Eleven

posted by Eugene Wei at 10:44 PM | link

I don't think writing in a coffee shop or a restaurant is my thing. Maybe I need to warm to the idea. I get nothing from the random coffee drinkers around me, and I feel pompous typing away on my laptop in the shop. I don't even drink coffee. I've been typing away on my novel while lying in bed.

Movies and television reflect our collective subconscious. I think it happens by the very nature of the economics of mass entertainment.

So what's up with the smurfs? Little blue creatures that lived in mushrooms? An evil foe named Gargamel with a giant cat. One female smurf among a village of male(?) smurfs? Only now, with years of life under my belt and a mind which is just now awakening to the world do I see the smurfs for bizarre childhood mythology they were.

I bring up the Smurfs because they're mentioned in XXX. It's really an unfortunate title if you imagine all the customers who don't know what the official website is, typing XXX into search engines.

I was chatting with another transplant to Seattle about the city, whether or not she planned on staying, what her impression of the city was. We agreed that while it's a very friendly town, outwardly, it's not very inviting. It's a subtle note, a minor chord as opposed to a discordant chord, but I would say that it's more difficult for a mid to late 20 something to burrow into a social niche in Seattle than in a city like Chicago or San Francisco.

For example, you might be new in town and at a party, and standing around because you don't know anyone. How do others react to you? Or you might be talking with someone and suddenly a whole group of his or her friends come up and start chatting. Are you introduced? Do folks who know you're new in town try and invite you out with a crowd to try and integrate you into town? My roommate's pretty good about it, and there are a few others who've been great, but it does feel socially inert for an outsider. You have to work to keep yourself relevant.

Ah, to be in my early twenties again, partying away weeknights and weekends, collecting phone numbers and names like the Classifieds.

I say this because I looked into buying a house, and the financials don't really make sense for me right now. The transaction costs kill you so you have to stay with it for a couple years, four or five. And if you sell lots of stock in a year, beyond a certain level of income they start reducing the amount of housing deductions you can take. This is a tricky thing for me because I have a hard time settling down and projecting several years into the future. I may have to buy a house and rent it out.

Roddy leads the life I'd like to lead. He actually reminds me of myself, with his current passion for photography, which he studied himself as I did. You know you're speaking with a kindred spirit when you can look at someone's photos and the first word you say to him is Fuji Velvia? And you both know it's a rhetorical question, because what you're really acknowledging is that you both love the saturated colors of Fuji's signature slide film. He has some lovely ones.

I like tapping away on my Mac laptop, and its creative applications are definitely easier to use and more stable than those on the Windows side (digital music, photography, and video especially) but lots of web pages don't render properly in IE on the Macintosh. I'm going to try Opera, which on Windows was the fastest browser around.
posted by Eugene Wei at 4:33 PM | link