Mariners-A's

Bill was kind enough to take me to the Mariners game against the A's. Bill has sweet seats, a few rows behind the Mariners' dugout. I've been spoiled this year, getting used to seats near home plate on the main level.

Some notes from the game:

• Edgar Martinez was back off of the DL. His second at bat he hit an opposite field homer off Zito, to deep right center. A couple A's, including Jermaine Dye, hit rockets out to the same part of the park and saw those die on the warning track. That's a tough place to hit it out in Safeco, which shows how much power Edgar has to opposite field. He waits back and inside the ball, keeping his weight back, and drives down and through the ball to right. Back about 15 years ago in baseball, no one really swung that way. Now, hitters are strong enough to hit it out the opposite way. Over 50% of Sosa's home runs have gone to right field this year.


• Zito got hit pretty hard, but he's still a stud. He's so solid. A fastball that hits 88 to 90mph, an 11 to 5 curve that drops off the table at 74 to 75mph, and a changeup that comes in at 78 to 79mph. All delivered with the same exact motion, which is the key to his deception. And he's not afraid to throw any of those pitches on any count. You could see when he fooled right handers with the curve because their front leg would buckle. One of the prettiest things in baseball is watching a pitcher fool a batter on a changeup. Watching it on TV you think, "why doesn't he just wait back on that ball and kill it," but anyone who has ever been in the box when a pitcher delivers a changeup with the exact same motion as a fastball but takes 8mph off the ball knows how difficult it is to make contact. The difference in the time it takes the pitch is hundredths of a second, and it's just enough that your bat is ahead of the pitch. Hoffman and Moyer have made careers out of that pitch. Pedro has a nasty nasty change. Maddux has a doozy of a change. Schilling and Clemens use the split fingered fastball as a change. Oh, back to Zito. If he stays healthy, he'll be an All-Star for years.


• John Olerud is underrated. Just a solid, solid hitter who didn't get fooled by Zito at all. Keeps his weight back, waits for pitches he can drive, and rock solid on defense at 1B. He helps every one of his teams win.


• Rafael Soriano has a live arm, but he doesn't quite have the command he needs or a strong enough offspeed pitch to be a dominant starter. Granted, the M's had to call him up earlier than they wanted. He should be learning his trade in triple-A right now.


• Imagine how tough Hudson, Zito, and Mulder would be if the A's had good outfield defense. Long and Mabry played CF and LF, and they're terrible. Two flies that should have been caught dropped for doubles. Defense is generally overrated, and the A's have a different but effective formula for winning baseball, but the A's pitchers must get sick of seeing some of those balls dropping in.


• I suck at those Oldies trivia games they play on the scoreboard, except when it's baseball trivia. In a way, I'm glad. Someday, when I'm the only one who can name some of those songs....oh, let's not go there.


• Either my vision is improving, or they've slowed down the hat trick game. I'd always been good at that game, but last year for some reason I started losing it. It scared me to death. I thought my vision was going. I stopped playing to avoid the pain of losing. This year it's easy again. I think they slowed it down.


• Bret Boone is the steroid poster child. His bulging body is frightening.


• One of the reasons Kazuhiro Sasaki is so hard to hit is that he has a hitch in his delivery right before he releases the ball that completely throws off the batter's timing. The ball seems to appear out of nowhere, and timing his forkball is nearly impossible. You can't tell on TV, but from behind home plate it's as plain as day. Pitchers are taught to deliver the ball in a way that feels natural and is mechanically sound, but for pitchers who don't have great stuff, it might be worth investing time in a deceptive delivery.


• Ichiro will always bat over .300. If he continues to bunt more, he'll get some 50 to 60 infield hits a year. He hit a routine grounder to the first basemen Hatteberg and just flat out beat Zito to the bag. He has some 30 infield hits already.

I missed our softball doubleheader yesterday. Sadness.

Random epiphanies

Today, in an early morning meeting, I was staring out the window of a conference room. It was a gray day, and a light fog was rolling in over the Puget Sound. And at that moment, suddenly I felt this brief but enormous wave of optimism and happiness.

I have these fleeting epiphanies from time to time. I have no idea what causes them. Nothing in particular seems to bring them on, but when they occur, it feels like "everything's gonna be alright."

Odd. I wonder if it's a chemical mixup, may be a seratonin bubble bursting, or emotional wires crossing in the brain. If I could bottle that feeling I'd always be on cloud nine.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:23 PM | link

Tilt

I've officially reached overflow. I've always tried to return all e-mails within a day, and that's a hopeless cause. Both personal and work e-mails have grown to the point of no return. If you're awaiting a response from me, mea culpa.

New Star Trek trailer

Star Trek: Nemesis is the title.

[Heh heh: here's that terrible trailer for Swimfan which I saw before Minority Report]

Chow Chou

Linda treated me to a great dinner at Restaurant Zoe Tuesday night. Odd, seeing Linda and Scott in the space of a week when I hadn't seen either of them in ages. Linda is practically married, still as giggly as ever. Those early days living with Linda, Nick, Joel, and Neil--it's amazing to think of myself first setting foot in Seattle, naive, bright-eyed, clueless. Seems like just yesterday and yet I'm ages away from that guy.

Command us, leader

One memorable headline from The Onion read: "Oprah Viewers Patiently Awaiting Instructions".

I'm reminded of that in the wake of Oprah's announcement that she was effectively ending her Oprah book club because a handful of media outlets have jumped in to fill the void. USA Today, Live with Regis and Kelly, Today, and Good Morning America. Despite the proliferation, they've still been influential. Good Morning America recommended Ann Packer's The Dive from Clausen's Pier and it shot to #1 at Amazon.com.

Do people really need guidance on what to read, and do these organizations hold some credibility in that area? Do people really care what Regis is reading? We're all robots. Maybe we just want to read what everyone else is reading so we feel like part of a community, or so we have someone to discuss the book with. I've never been part of a book club, so I don't know. The last time I had to read something in a group setting was in college, as homework.

Pledge of Allegiance

A Federal Appeals Court ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. This could affect nine states in the United States. Basically, the ruling hinged on the words "under god" added by Congress in 1954. Of course, politicians everywhere wrung their hands and decried this ruling. A whole bunch of Congressman from the House gathered outside the Capitol to recite the pledge in a show of support (an event which sounds humorously melodramatic). The politically safe thing, of course, is to assume the public will be outraged, so it's not surprising that all the politicians quickly denounced the decision.

It all seems like a lot of hubaloo about nothing. I bet if you ask the people who are most affected by this, the kids, they'll say that reciting the pledge has no influence on their religious beliefs. Some people in this country believe in God, or a god of some sort, and plenty do not. We generally get along okay.

I suggest "One nation, under Oprah."
Or "One nation, under Oprah, powered by Microsoft Windows, drinking Coca Cola."

Support Salon

Salon.com auditors have raised doubts about Salon's ability to survive. That saddens me immensely. Salon is a daily read for me, and it should be for you as well. It's a clever mix of Wired, the NYTimes, Entertainment Weekly, People, and your average relationship/sex advice column, all in one. I purchased a Premium subscription a while back and encourage all of you to do so as well, so Salon doesn't go away. Otherwise we'll be left with a whole slew of
blogs to read, like this one, and that's a sad thought.

Join us

It is futile to resist.

Warchalking

Would love to see warchalking take off in the U.S. I imagine a day where I'll walk around town, flipping my Powerbook open anywhere and picking up the Internet through Wifi. It may yet happen, a revolution driven a series of passionate early adopters. Unlikely, but it would be fantastic.

Nickel and dimed

Wal-Mart, the modern sweatshop? Among my friends who know, it certainly has that reputation.

Of course, the whole 40 hour thing isn't unique to low-wage jobs. When I was in consulting, we always booked 40 hours to the client each week, even though we worked about twice that, not including hours of travel.

Yeah, but it all gets re-invested in new DVDs

I listed about 20 DVDs for sale on Amazon.com through our Marketplace service and I've sold almost all of them in the past 2 weeks. All y'all should be selling stuff on Amazon as well. I don't know anyone who doesn't have some used books or CDs they'd love to get rid of and make some cash.

And four great beasts came up from the sea...

All this terrorist talk has the public contemplating Apocalypse. Websites track apocalyptic news and events. It all has me feeling alternately helpless/depressed and bold/reckless from day to day.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:59 PM | link

New look

Bear with me as I reformat my weblog template. Have wanted to go with a 3-column template for a while, and finally got around to doing it tonight. Didn't use CSS--one of these days I'll sit down and figure it out, but not while I have a day job. So if there are a few stray line breaks and broken links, know that I'll fix them up over the next few weeks.

Added some links off to the right. Sites I visit regularly and which may be of interest to you. Glad to see that both Jenny and Adam have weblogs now. Clever writers, both of them, and now that they're off to the far reaches of this continent, I look forward to keeping up with them online, from afar.

Hey Jenny, how come Adam has a link to your weblog but you haven't reciprocated? =)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer was strewn all across the Net today. We'll all have that waiting for us in our holiday stockings this year. Sweet.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:48 PM | link

Minority Report

Old roomie Scott is moving back to Hawaii, so I caught up with him tonight for dinner, then we took in Minority Report. Good luck to Scott as he continues his career in surfing country.

[Sidenote: before the film, I saw one of the worst trailers I've ever seen, for a film titled Swimfan@. Jesse Bradford and Erika Christensen looked like bizarro Freddie Prinze Jr. and bizarro Julia Stiles]

Excellent film. Interesting look to the film. Spielberg put the film through a process called bleach bypass, which is does to Technicolor what bleach would do to your tie-dye t-shirt. Skin tones go from rosy to pale. He also shot some scenes on 800 ASA film, which photographers know adds grain to the picture.

I admire Tom Cruise not for his acting but primarily for his go-get-them spirit. He seems like a high energy, organized, ambitious, intense dude. Perhaps it's the Scientology. All I know is that for a guy who once starred in Top Gun and Legend, he has caught the eye of some of the leading directors in the world. When his career is over, he'll be able to say that he starred in films by:
Steven Spielberg
Cameron Crowe
Ron Howard
David Finsher
Stanley Kubrick
John Woo
Paul Thomas Anderson
Martin Scorsese
Oliver Stone
Barry Levinson
Sydney Pollack
Rob Reiner
Neil Jordan
Brian De Palma

That is the definition of a list that is "long and distinguished," a phrase usually reserved for my roster of ex-girlfriends. There's no one better at playing the young hotshot than Cruise--I'd like to channel some of that energy in my own life.

Philip K. Dick--would he enjoy all the films being made from his stories? None of these movies capture the psychological complexity of his stories, but they do blow them out into high entertainment. I'm looking forward to Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly which is based on a Dick story and being produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney. In an article in last week's NYTimes, Dick was noted as having approved of the script of Blade Runner: "[The script] bore no relation to the book. Oddly, in some ways it was better. What my story will become is one titanic lurid collision of androids being blown up, androids killing humans, general confusion and murder, all very exciting to watch. Makes my book seem dull by comparison."

Of course, he then added, "As a writer, though, I'd like to see some of my ideas, not just special effects of my ideas, used."

Popcorn, soda, action

Some new movie trailers: Daredevil (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner), Red Dragon (remake of the prequel to Silence of the Lambs), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the final Austin Powers in: Goldmember trailer, a new xXx trailer (Vin Diesel as the Gen-X James Bond), and a real teaser for Solaris (Steven Soderbergh, James Cameron, George Clooney).

Ah, you gotta love the debut of summer popcorn movie season. The trailers don't disappoint, though many of these movies will. Daredevil's costume looks terrible, and Ben Affleck does not fit my mental picture of Matt Murdock. Jennifer Garner is a babe, but she doesn't have the dangerous, slightly crazed bloodlust of Elektra. Red Dragon is a money making ploy. It doesn't need to be made, as Manhunter already covered the story effectively, minus the big stars. Ed Norton is great, but he looks like a scrawny kid compared to William Petersen who played Will Graham in the original. Hannibal Lecter as played by Anthony Hopkins would eat Norton for an appetizer.

Cheers, Lance

Had a small dinner to send off Lance on Thursday. He's off the the UK for a new job with Vodafone, and it will be sad to see him off. Lots and lots of friends from Amazon and Seattle are moving on, leaving town.

I will miss Lance's wry, understated British humor. A more pleasant chap you'll seldom meet. I'm sure a successful career awaits him in the UK, and I've his promise that when I visit the UK I'll be able to crash his flat and go for a spin in his new M5. Good taste in cars, that Lance.

Tick tock

Women have their biological clocks. I have a clock, too. It's the one that says I better make something of myself before my useful years of brainpower fade away. Can't tell if the clock is ticking louder recently, or faster. I feel like Captain Hook.
posted by Eugene Wei at 5:00 PM | link

Zounds!

Bleary-eyed, I'm up to catch the U.S. versus Germany. Well, actually, it's over now. Man, we had Germany in all kinds of trouble, but we couldn't convert. Outplayed them, though. Until 2006...

Braziiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllll

England fails to capitalize on its man advantage (when's the last time a star player like Ronaldinho was given a red card in World Cup play?!?) and Brazil moves on. England, and poor goalie David Seamen, weeps.

Red Card!

Ronaldinho is banished to the sideline with a red card, and now Brazil is a man down.

Goooooooooaaaalll

Wow, brilliant free kick by Ronaldinho. Brazil up 2-1. As good as Ronaldinho feels, that's how badly goalie David Seamen feels right now.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:41 AM | link

England Brazil

Great first half. It's 1 to 1 at halftime as Brazil scores just before the break to match Michael Owen's shot off a poor reception by a Brazilian defender. Huge names in this match. Owen, Beckham. Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho. I can barely keep my eyes open, but it's tough to miss this match between these soccer superpowers. Not sure how I'll wake myself up for the U.S.-Germany match.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:24 AM | link

Little pink coffin

Yet another company has announced a tool for fighting spam (unsolicited e-mail, not the mysterious canned meat). Cloudmark's tool is called SpamNet.

The idea is that this add-on software places an extra folder in your e-mail program. When you receive spam, you can click on it and add it to your spam folder, where it gets reported back to a central server somewhere. If you report spam properly, your future reports are taken more seriously. The idea is that there are just as many, probably a lot more, people reading e-mail and receiving spam as there are sending spam.
Of course, each spam mailer sends out a ton more e-mail than the average recipient. However, if the entire e-mail community begins to report spam, you have an entire army fighting the problem instead of relying on a small central group to track it.

Clever idea, and one of the more promising approaches I've heard.

SpamNet only works for Windows computers running Outlook. If you qualify, I encourage you to download it. Since it derives its power from the size and participation of its community (like Napster, or SETI@Home), it will only be effective if a critical mass of users adopt it. You'll feel like you're contributing to better the world of e-mail for everyone--think of it as volunteer work.

What they really need is to have support for Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, whose accounts tend to be spammed mercilessly because spammers can just guess at usernames to attach to @hotmail.com or @yahoo.com. My home e-mail account is actually fairly immune to spam so far. Or someone like Microsoft or some standards board should encourage its integration directly into Outlook and other popular e-mail programs as a standard.

Electronica

Odd convergences. Cleaning out my e-mail at work today and found an old link from James to the video for Dirty Vegas' Days Go By. You know this song, even though the title may not be familiar. It's the one in the Mitsubishi Eclipse commercial, where three young'uns are driving at night, seemingly to a rave, and this song comes on, and the girl in the passenger seat starts grooving.

Cool commercial. Cool tune. Same day, I read an article in Salon about the influence of electronic music on the American music scene, and it mentions this song and the commercial a couple times.

Oh yeah, cool video. Go check it out. I couldn't get the Quicktime link to work, but the Windows Media link came up just fine. I may use a few of those moves next time out on the dance floor.

What the $#@*&!

The fifth leading votegetter for an NL outfield spot in the 2002 MLB All-star game is Tsuyoshi Shinjo, ahead of Andruw Jones, Larry Walker, Jim Edmonds. What, can people not tell the difference between Japanese outfielders and think he's Ichiro? Actually, Armando Rios of Pittsburgh has more votes than Andruw Jones or Larry Walker. I have no idea how that happened.

Creative Comments, er, Commons

Another interesting interview with Lawrence Lessig, law professor at Stanford and the public figure most known for trying to get the folks in D.C. to understand the world of technology and how law might best apply in that world. I agree with him on the principles which he titles end-to-end, which says that you should keep the network simple, placing intelligence at the edges. The Internet is a good example. TCP/IP is fairly simple--it moves data. Computers at the edges of the network are smart and can do all sorts of fancy things like play movies or music, create web pages, process spreadsheets, etc. The principle allows networks to evolve quickly, without requiring the coordination of multiple parties.

Open Source Software

Joel has a theory on why various companies are pursuing open source software.

Quicktime

Quicktime rules.

Will it cause tumors in your ear

Now this would be a cool, a phone that is planted in your tooth and which you hear through your earbone. Someone could be whispering in my ear. All they'd need is a video feed to see what I'd be seeing and a panel of experts could be informing me of people's names, jokes, and random facts which would make me the toast of every cocktail party.

Of course, it would exacerbate the problem now where people talk into earpieces connected to their phones and I mistakenly think they're talking to me.

"Hello?" they'll say.

"Uh, hi," I respond.

(ignoring me) "Hey honey! How are you? Hey listen..." they chatter.

(small black cloud over an embarrassed yours truly)
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:58 AM | link

D'oh!

The RIAA has neutered Audiogalaxy. Where, oh where, is one to get MP3s? The list is shrinking.

Spidergoat

Interesting article in NYTimes Sunday Magazine about researchers who are synthesizing spiderwebs--or silk--by inserting spider genes into goat eggs, creating goats who excrete the silk in their milk. That silk is then extracted and fed through a series of machines that simulate the biological mechanisms of actual spiders, creating a substance they call BioSteel which is five times as strong as regular steel.

What a crazy world we live in.

Footnote: supposedly spiders were once all ground hunting creatures, but when their prey learned to fly, only spiders who learned to create invisible, sticky webs survived evolutionary pressures.
posted by Eugene Wei at 5:13 PM | link

Neato

Navigate to the Bang and Olufsen homepage and then to
International > Products > Telephones > BeoCom2



That is the coolest looking phone I've ever seen. Too bad it's not available in North America. Forget tiny cellphones with buttons you can barely press--sometimes bigger is better.


Also, you can hear a low bitrate RealAudio or Windows Media Player sample of Coldplay's new single In My Place from their upcoming album (titled A Rush of Blood to the Head). Catchy, happy BritPop. Go to Coldplay's homepage, then navigate to Audio/Video, then to Singles, and scroll down to the bottom. Rumor has it the band's breaking up after their next album, which would be unfortunate.

These two examples, by the way, illustrate the problem with entirely Flash-driven websites. You can't deep-link to content within them.
posted by Eugene Wei at 3:29 PM | link

Envy

Orson Welles directed Citizen Kane at the age of 25. I think it takes a certain single-mindedness and courage, or obliviousness, to achieve greatness at such a young age. I think I lack a little of both, and it's depressing me.

I was reminded of it after watching the Seattle Symphony Night at the Oscars show, when they played clips from various classic films while projecting the film on a screen up above.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:00 PM | link

Dormer

Dormer is the French verb meaning "to sleep." Dormer is also the name of the main character in the 2002 remake of Insomnia.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:50 PM | link

Fun with fingers

The movies, and the public, have a fascination with biometric fingerprint devices, yet they're among the least secure of ID systems out there. I was reminded of this while watching The Bourne Identity, in which Matt Damon's Jason Bourne goes to check out his safety deposit box at a Swiss bank and is asked to place his hand on a fingerprint reading LCD screen.

Japanese cryptographer Tsutomu Matsumoto was able to fool 11 leading fingerprint ID devices using a fake finger made of common household gelatin, like those used to make gummy bears.

Other researchers have been able to get a positive ID by simply breathing on the fingerprint readers, which take the combination of moisture on the reader and the oil left over from the previous actual finger as proof that a human finger is resting on the screen.

On a related note, the police lineup may be an anachronism. Experts have shown that the standard police lineup, in which six suspects are shown to a witness at once, is not as reliable as showing the witness six suspects in succession, each one alone. That's because humans tend to make relative judgments when presented with multiple suspects at once rather than evaluating each person independently. I read that in an article in the Atlantic Monthly.

I also learned that claiming to have evidence that you don't actually have is a legal interrogation method.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:47 PM | link

Starbuck

Starbucks, the coffee chain, was named after the coffee drinking character Starbuck from Moby Dick.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:38 PM | link

Tune-up complete

Lance Armstrong won the final tune-up for the Tour de France, the Dauphine Libere. I finally decided to take the plunge and head over to France for the last week of July to catch Lance in the mountains and ride some of them myself. I couldn't pass up the chance to see the finest cyclist of his generation, the cancer survivor poster boy, live and in person, pursuing his fourth straight Tour victory. Who knows what will happen next year. Maybe he tires of the sport, maybe he gets injured, maybe he loses form. Life is short.
posted by Eugene Wei at 8:12 PM | link

Big Daddy

I'm not a Shaq fan, and not too many non-Laker fans are,
but he was dominant in the finals. He hit his free throws,
brought his usual power game, hit turn arounds, jump hooks,
bank shots, and spun around Todd MacCulloch like he
was a mannequin.
posted by Eugene Wei at 2:58 PM | link

a.k.a. AK

A Russian girl with the initials AK and looks which have set tongues wagging in her chosen profession. Unlike Anna Kournikova, though, she's a winner.

That Flash intro cracks me up.
posted by Eugene Wei at 2:50 PM | link

Minority Report

Ebert and Roeper give it two thumbs up, calling it "a masterpiece." I'm looking forward to it. I never read the Philip Dick story on which it's supposedly based, but I did read a story with a similar premise, The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester, about society in the year 2031, when telepathics anticipate all crimes before they happen. Good book, and not to be confused with Demolition Man, a movie starring Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone, and a much less impressive artistic achievement.

Ebert interviewed Spielberg and Cruise. Doesn't filmmaking sound like so much fun sometimes?

As with A.I., another Spielberg film, this one has a fairly elaborate set of websites associated with it. I visited the Precrime website and took the personality test, to see if I had what it takes to be a Precrime agent. My personality result?

"You are a perfection-seeker: You seek to be an ideal person in a perfect world. You are a reformer and a romantic, always looking at what should be rather than what it. Life has goals and a purpose for you and you find fulfillment when you accomplish something, especially when it has a place within a bigger picture."

I can't tell if that's me or not. As noted in a recent Salon article about alleged psychic John Edward, host of Crossing Over, horoscopes and fortune tellers and psychics often sound convincing but are simply playing a statistics game.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:21 PM | link

File sharing and music purchases

Stan Liebowitz's evidence supports what I believe, which is that music sales are not materially affected by file sharing. The music and movie industries, like any other industries, are quick to point fingers when sales are down, and quick to claim credit when the money's rolling in. I do buy more CDs now that I can sample music more easily through file sharing. If I like something I have no problem paying for it. But CDs aren't priced fairly.

Frankly, file sharing isn't going away for a long long time. Perhaps never. Eventually you'd think the music industry would stop wringing their hands and try to meet their customer's needs. These first revs of downloadable music services are pathetic, but they're healthier than a constant stream of lawsuits. Suspecting that everyone is out there to rob you blind, that the world is pitted against you, it's classic attribution error. All bad things are results of your environment. All good things come from oneself.

I know people like that, who have excuses for everything, and I wonder if they'll finally find the courage to take responsibility for themselves on their deathbed.

Maybe one of these days, I'll become an old, conservative schmo who yearns for the good old days. For now, the idea of a universe that changes (discovering intelligent life in this universe, or new laws of physics, these are good things) is an exciting prospect. I believe that law should evolve over time if reality changes, both those of the public judiciary and even those of private institutions like the church (revoke the ban on mandatory celibacy for priests, anyone?).

Bite an ear! Do something!

A whole crew of us gathered to watch Lewis jab Tyson's head into a soggy apple on Saturday night. Frankly, the only reason to watch was the hope that somehow, Tyson still had that dangerous, frenetic punching power from his youth, when he'd savagely annihalate his opponents in a few short rounds.

I'm not one of those folks who finds boxing to be inhumane. If two grown adults consent to beat each other up in a ring with gloves on, I'm not going to stand in their way. Pugilism has a technique and an art to it, and some of those Ali fights were amazing displays of courage.

By the time the fight passed the fourth round, we had gone from hoping to see a display of power and speed from Tyson to hoping he didn't get pounded into oblivion. His face was ground beef. After the fight, when he admitted he didn't think he could beat Lewis, when he admitted he was thankful for the payday, and when he practically begged for another fight, the mystique was gone. At one point during the post-fight interview, when they met at the center of the ring, Tyson hugged Lewis and then noticed that some of his blood had rubbed off on Lewis' face. So Tyson reached over and wiped it from Lewis face with his right hand. Tyson?!? At least in previous fights, when he got disqualified for biting ears and hitting after the bell, he still seemed like a dangerous loose cannon. After the Lewis fight, he was just another meek, unemployed has-been living on reputation, hoping to earn a steady paycheck to pay the bills.

In this economy, there are plenty of those, and I don't need to pay $59.95 to see them on TV.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:31 AM | link

Alan and Sharon brought a heat wave to Seattle. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Sunny and 90 degrees is a welcome, welcome change from grey, misty, and 45 degrees.

Before I moved to Seattle, I didn't fancy myself someone easily affected by the weather. But over five Seattle winters, I've learned what it means to crave the sun like an alcoholic craves the bottle. Not that I know what that feels like. I just imagine it feels like this.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:51 PM | link

No matter how bad things get, at least you can say you didn't have anything to do with the Scooby Doo movie. Their only chance for success is that there aren't a lot of other kids movies out for parents to take their kids to during this, the early summer vacation season.
posted by Eugene Wei at 5:03 PM | link

Today is Robert's last day at Amazon. Yesterday after work a crew of us gathered to share some drinks and some food and to reminisce about our favorite Bobby stories. I have many.

I met Robert at Amazon, which he joined in Feb. of 1998. He used to sit with Aaron in one wing of the fourth floor, where I sat as well.

He was one of my first roommates in Seattle in my sweet old pad up at the top of the hill in Fremont. Because we were at the top of the hill, we had a great view in all directions. The windows of my room opened out onto a narrow ledge which, if traversed, allowed one to climb up on the roof of the house and look out at the sunsets over the Olympics.

Robert used to climb out on the roof with a bottle of wine, his guitar, and occasionally an unsuspecting, or perhaps suspecting and consenting young lass. Of course, I didn't always know he was out there and sometimes I'd be lying in bed and would hear a rap at my window from Robert and whoever else I had locked out there on the roof.

We had some good times playing guitar and singing out on the roof. Somehow, and this is fortunate, we never feel off. It was a steep roof, and the fall was three stories onto the pavement. Death was probable.

After I busted up my knee I couldn't drive stick for a while so he and I switched cars. Robert still had this old SUV from his college days. This grey thing was old, had that red Stanford decal in the back window. It looked like a hippie mobile.

There was the time we saw the Chieftains at Chateau Ste. Michelle. I can't remember why we got the tix, as we didn't really feel like seeing them live. We took Susannah and Robert's Russian bride (okay, she was just a former co-worker visiting from the Bay Area, but she was Russian). Each of us downed a bottle of wine, and we danced around that lawn like lunatics while the older and more subdued crowd looked on with disapproval. Unfortunately, we were too loopy to drive home afterwards so we put down a blanket next to the car in the parking lot, plopped down, and practiced German from my phrase book (don't ask why I was trying to learn German but suffice it to say that phase has passed).

Some long time later, after the entire lot had emptied out, Robert managed to sober up enough to drive us home. Mind you, it was a work night. We got home, popped in The Rock, and watched til 4 in the morning or something like that.

Another time, Robert and I played Gold Mountain and he shot a 73. He had a putt for a par round on the last hole.

There was the time he and I took Scott to Palace Kitchen for his birthday, then to Belltown Billiards for drinks. Scott's head was shaved back then. This is an important detail. We got Scott hammered at Belltown. As we were leaving, some punks from a neighboring table brought back their billiard balls and told Susan, a friend of ours who worked at Belltown, that they had found those on the table and didn't want to pay. Scott and I didn't take too well to their lame excuses, and being somewhat intoxicated, we let them know that they were bunch of cheap asses and to pay up. Susan let them off though, and those guys left.

Well, Scott and Robert and I settle up and leave, and we find the six of these dudes waiting outside for us. Here's where Scott's shaved head comes in. The leader of this band of yahoos says, "Hey skin, I didn't appreciate your comments back there." Except his grammar wasn't quite so solid. Well, three of us loopy dudes weren't going to come out too well against this sober fatso and his five sober buds, but what the hell, it's good to mess it up every now and then. Somehow it never came to blows. Maybe Robert the peacemaker brokered a cease fire. So Scott and this guy shake hands and these six characters wander off. About two minutes later Scott suddenly comes to his senses and goes off chasing after these guys who have long since disappeared.

Robert and I hopped in the car, found Scott, and drove him over to a friends place on the East side, dumped him there, and drove off.

There are other stories which I'll add sometime when I'm not brain dead.

posted by Eugene Wei at 12:47 AM | link

Prior

Friday, I saw Mark Prior's fourth start in the majors as my beloved Cubbies visited town to play the Mariners for the first time in their history. Prior was matched up against another good young pitcher, Joel Pineiro. Usually, I root for the Mariners, but not when they're playing the Cubs.

Prior started off well, striking out Ichiro on a 95 mph fastball which Ichiro swung through. From there on out he was in control, pitching out of one jam with runners on first and third and no outs. All night he was spotting 93 to 97 mph gas, snappy 80-81 mph curves, and the occasional 84-85 mph changeup. The Mariners were overmatched in many cases; many of the strikeouts were full or check swings. Prior looks calm on the mound and has a smooth delivery. It's easy cheese--as he continues to mature it wouldn't be surprising to see him tossing in the high 90's consistently.

Baylor let Prior go back out for the 7th inning after he had already thrown 110 pitches or so. That made me nervous. He ended up tossing 124 pitches, striking out the side in his last inning. If Baylor had let him stay out there much longer I would've run out on the field and yanked him myself. Baylor let Clement out there the next night for 116 pitches. Let's hope Baylor, with his job in jeopardy, doesn't abuse his starters until their arms fall off. I won't exactly shed many tears if he's let go this year.

Later Kyle Farnsworth came in and blew Ichiro away on a 98 mph high fastball. Sammy also connected and hit a rocket of a line drive out to the second level of the left field bleachers. The other memorable moment came when Pineiro got Sosa to ground into a double play, pumped his fist, and started walking off the field. Problem? There were only two outs. The home plate ump told a sheepish Pineiro to get back out there, but perhaps his mind didn't follow. The next batter, Crime Dog McGriff, homered to right.

Prior ended up with 11Ks in 7 innings. Someday I'll look back and tell folks about seeing him pitch his first year in the majors. He has the potential to be a control power pitcher, much like Roger Clemens or Curt Schilling of the past few years. It's a rare combination--Kerry Wood is still trying to gain command of his stuff. If he stays healthy, Prior will be the Cubs ace within two years.
posted by Eugene Wei at 5:31 PM | link

Ugh

I haven't been able to post this because it's turns my stomach, but I can't resist. That knot above Hasim Rahman's eye during his bout with Holyfield is one of the nastiest sports injuries I've ever seen.
posted by Eugene Wei at 8:06 PM | link

Neyer and Gladwell

One of my favorite journalists interviews another of my favorite journalists. On the topic of baseball. Cool.

If you haven't read any of Malcolm Gladwell's articles for The New Yorker, or his book The Tipping Point, you're missing out. But if you've read my weblog before, you knew that was coming.
posted by Eugene Wei at 2:06 AM | link

The Sunday NYTimes has an article about how Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, acknowledges the the FBI has to be reorganized to have any chance to fight terrorism effectively. Mueller took the position Sept. 4, just a week before the attacks, so he isn't likely to be implicated as part of the organizational problems he admits exist. Still, give him credit for being brave enough to confront the facts; it certainly isn't the way to win new friends in an organization you've just been designated to head.

It's not going to be easy. Given that counter terrorism puts communication and coordination at a premium, the idea that FBI agents can't send e-mail from their desktop computers is absurd.

Importantly, sacrificing all of our personal freedoms and privacy does not necessarily have to be part of the counter-terrorist solution. The facts seem to indicate that the FBI and CIA had enough information to detect trouble. Being able to monitor all of our personal activity without sufficient suspicion of criminal activity, as Ashcroft has allowed the FBI to do by easing domestic spy rules, smacks of desperation or even worse, an attempt to capitalize on a nervous public to seize undue powers of surveillance. William Safire of the NYTimes mused in an op-ed: J. Edgar Mueller.

A related problem is that most of the nation's best and brightest don't consider working for the government because of the bureaucracy involved. Some people I know do so anyway, with hopes of serving the public any way possible. Fewer than that actually put up with it for a lifetime.

Republicans and Democrats are standing up from the dinner table and throwing dinner rolls at each other, pointing fingers. Democrats are saying the White House knew more about 9/11 than they're letting on. Republicans are saying the Democrats are out of line and unpatriotic for undermining faith in the government with their accusations. Political crap. It's clear the government and lots of national agencies didn't work together optimally. Instead of trying to use this issue to win votes, they should do a post-mortem and figure out how to work together to fix the problem.

Magic Johnson + Michael Jordan =

Zinedine Zidane, widely considered the best soccer player in history. Magic called him Magic and Michael combined. Soccer has a lot of big-name stars. I don't play soccer or follow it much, but names like Beckham and Zidane and Figo ring bells.

Zidane has the build I wish I had. 6' 1", 172 pounds. Runs 9 miles in a typical soccer match. It's World Cup time. Between my junior and senior years at school I saw Brazil play Russia in World Cup at Stanford Stadium That was likely the craziest sports crowd I've ever been a part of. By the end of the game I was singing Brazilian chants and jumping up and down and passing people up and down the stands. I don't remember much of the match, though I do remember Brazil won.

Clackety clack clack

You know what I want? Someone to write a program that creates the sound of a typewriter as a type on my computer. Writing on a computer is just too quiet. If someone invents that, please let me know.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:53 PM | link

Fingerprints

Interesting article in last week's New Yorker about the heated legal debate about the validity of fingerprinting as a science, one admissible as expert testimony in a court of law.

Some say yes, fingerprinting is a science. It has long been regarded as thus, both in courts of law and by the public at large, no doubt from seeing a few too many suits dusting for prints in movie crime scenes.

In the case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals from 1993, the Supreme Court established the legal precedent that Federal Rules of Evidence, should provide the standard for admitting expert scientific testimony. Specifically, some of the questions which had to be answered to determine if an the evidence of some field of study should be admitted:
Can the theory or technique be (and has it been) tested?
Has it been subjected to peer review and publication?
Is there a high known or potential rate of error?
Are there standards controlling the technique’s operation?
Have the techniques been accepted within the scientific community?

While fingerprinting may be holding its own, other forms of testimony are under assault. For example, the National Academy of Forensic Engineers challenges the practice of allowing policeman to perform accident reconstruction. Again, this may be the influence of movies, but when I think of accident reconstruction I think of a flip chart in a court of law, with a crude 2-D drawing of city streets, flat colored paper cutouts of the two cars in question, and a big red and orange starburst to indicate the point of collision.

On a side note, many people consider medicine to be a science, when there is just as much variability between one doctor and another as there is between one chef and another. Atul Gawande has written a number of
interesting articles over the years in the New Yorker about just that topic (most of them are collected in the just published book Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science). Not all fingerprint analysts are equal in ability, and two different analysts might disagree on whether a set of prints are a match.


posted by Eugene Wei at 4:10 PM | link

When bureaucracy kills

Democrats are jumping all over the current administration for failing to take action on evidence that foretold Sept. 11. But it's unlikely that blame will be so easily assigned, nor is it going to be so easy to solve. We joke about the bureaucratic nature of government, but in this case it was deadly. These terrorist attacks have revealed some fundamental fissures in our democratic organizational structures--(another reason it's too early to declare democracy the end point of civilization).

Seymour Hersh writes a solid account in this week's New Yorker of how the government had various pieces of information which, if raised at the right levels and combined with other pieces of information, might have formed a cohesive, shrill warning that fatal attacks were imminent. But turf battles, lack of inter-organizational communication, and complacency killed the story.

When I encounter bureaucracy in a corporate environment, the cost is projects not delivered on time, competitive strikes not countered, and ultimately lost profits. In the government, the stakes are so high it's frightening. Irving Janis introduced groupthink as a fundamental cause for poor decision-making in the Bay of Pigs, the tragic Challenger Shuttle launch in 1986, the attack on Pearl
Harbor in 1941.

Thirteen Days chronicled one of the most commonly hailed instances of a government avoiding groupthink to avert an
international crisis: the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Some reporter will probably come out with a book which seeks to chronicle all the reasons why the government missed Sept. 11. Let's hope the government figures it out before the book is published.
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:06 AM | link

The next Indy film

Frank Darabont will take a crack at writing the next Indiana Jones film.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:40 AM | link