Cell phone bad manners

in
A few jokes by Seinfeld in his standup show [he noted that common behavior these days for two people meeting up is to place their cell phones on the table, as if drawing guns at a gunfight, seeing who will be first to receive a phone call and break the appointment for a more interesting social engagement] and an article in this week's NYTimes Sunday Styles reminded me of some of the behavior of cell phone users that drive me nuts. I've been guilty of some of these from time to time and have made a conscious effort to cut it all off.

  • People who constantly check their cell phone when they're out with you. Yeah, I get it, you're so damn popular. Do you want to be here or not? If you don't want to be here, then why don't you just leave? And can't you set your cell phone to vibrate or ring so you know when you have messages? Why are you looking at it every 10 minutes? Don't you know how to use your phone?

  • The most annoying two types of people who are constantly checking their cell phones: quasi-big shots whose constant cell phone monitoring reminds you that they're much more important than you are and could abandon you for more important company at any time, and those people who are not all that popular or important but who monitor their cell phone as if they are.

  • People who make time to see you and then spend half that time on the phone talking to other people. Yes, I'm having a lot of fun sitting here listening to one half of your conversation. Why don't you get out of here and join them and then call me on the cell phone so I can multi-task while you waste someone else's time?

  • A particularly irritating variant of the previous is the person who has to call their significant other every half hour to give updates on where they are. My mom used to yell at me for gabbing on the phone with friends I was going to see in person soon. Now I understand why. Couples like this need to just marry off and then spend all their time under the same house talking to each other. No one expects to hear from married couples anyway.


Besides, true playas don't have to carry cell phones. They have assistants that run important messages to them, and you can't reach them simply by dialing their cell. You have to go through their cadre of foot soldiers and minions to prove yourself worthy of their time first. The ratio of time you spend trying to get in front of them to the amount of their time you actually receive is in inverse proportion to your relative statuses in the world.
[The only people I don't resent for their cell phone usage are those who are on call. You can see the weary resignation with which they gaze upon these homing beacons which constantly circumscribe them in an invisible cage.]

13.7 megapixel digital SLR

in , ,
First comprehensive review I've seen of the Kodak Pro 14n, a 13.7 megapixel digital SLR. This one's a big deal for Nikon SLR users since it's the first 10+ megapixel SLR compatible with Nikon F-mount lenses and the first obvious Nikon-compatible competitor to Canon's EOS-1DS 11.4 megapixel SLR (the Kodak's $3000 cheaper, too, at $4999).
I'm still holding out for Nikon to come out with its own 10+ megapixel digital SLR. A year away? Let's hope so.
Until then, though, I think I'm going to give in and get an ultracompact digital camera, for those times when carrying a giant SLR body and lens is uncool and/or inconvenient. Like a night out at a club in Rio de Janeiro, or something like that. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm looking for something compact, that will fit in a pocket, with good low-light performance, but with enough manual exposure controls that I don't feel at the mercy of the camera's automatic exposure software. Also, exposure bracketing at preferably .3EV stops.
This Minolta Dimage F300 looks pretty sweet.
By the way, if you have a digital camera that uses AA batteries, you have to get one of these MAHA MH-C204F200 Smart Charger Combo Kits including four 2000mAH POWEREX AA batteries. Don't ask, just do it.

Global roaming

in , , , ,
This announcement by AT&T sounds promising, though I'll reserve hope for a bit. I just bought a new global cellphone, an Ericsson T68i, and my service is with AT&T. Given the amount of overseas travel I'm doing this year, being able to just pop in a new sim card into my cellphone like all the Aussies were doing in New Zealand would be awesome and preferable to renting a cellphone. The U.S. doesn't just stand alone in its desire to run over Iraq with military force, it stands alone in the wireless standards arena and thus we marvel over features our international brethren have enjoyed for years.
The main reason I bought the new phone, though, is to allow use of a Bluetooth headset. Rumor has it that everyone at Motorola uses headsets, and until more conclusive results are in, I'd just as soon stop radiating my brain or groin.
The T68i is a pretty nice phone. Reception on AT&T's GSM network has been fine thus far, though I have yet to test its limits. Perhaps this Thursday if I head out to Spokane to see Stanford in the first round of the NCAA's. The phone's buttons are a bit small, a problem with most such compact phones, but so far everything else has worked like a charm. I'm anxious to get voice dialing set up and to try out my Bluetooth headset, though I'll hold off on WAP and the digital camera attachment functionality until it proves economical.

The sad state of HD

Another area where the U.S. lags the rest of the world is in HDTV standards and programming. I finally got my HD (high definition) dish installed and it added a whopping three DirecTV HD channels to my lineup, Mark Cuban's HDNet, a pay-per-view HD channel, and an HBO HD channel.
That's not enough of a reason to buy an HD receiver. A few other reasons I upgraded: one, the availability of a moderate amount of HD programming from the majors, including NBC, Fox, ABC, and CBS, all accessible by connecting a $25 terrestrial antenna like one from Winegard to your HD receiver. The Oscars will be broadcast in HD this year, and quite a few sporting events as well. Some of the major sitcoms are in HD, and on a widescreen HDTV set the A/V experience in HD is a huge improvement. Secondly, now I can watch a program while taping another on my Tivo, an option which would have saved me some difficult choices during the past several months.
Relative to the rest of the world and what it could be, the options are sparse, disappointing. Until the U.S. can agree on a standard and push it, we'll be limited to the slim pickings out there. It's a shame, because HD done right is gorgeous.

True digital darkroom

On a more positive technological note, I've finally had the chance to try out the Epson Stylus 2200, generating some prints based on scans of slides from my trips to New Zealand.
Wow.
I have no idea what I'm doing, and I still managed a few gorgeous prints at 8 x 10. Even at that size the print quality rivals that you'd get from a photo lab, and the inks in the Stylus 2200 are archival, meaning they'll last long after you're dead. The digital workflow isn't exactly fast, given that each high quality scan takes me about 15 minutes, including image adjustments in Photoshop. Still, the control you have in Photoshop to manipulate photos is intoxicating. You can easily change color photos to black and white, or vice versa. You can sharpen or soften photos, turn them into watercolors, correct exposure errors, and so much more. I still don't own a digital camera, but most of the other elements of my digital darkroom are falling into place.
I have a lot to learn about color management and Photoshop, but the book Mastering Digital Printing promises to move me far along the learning curve.

Animatrix

This is going to be cool. Can't wait.
Can't wait?

Peace out

in , , ,
Not officially my last day at work today, but next Monday and Tuesday are just wrap up. Most e-mails I received at the office today were ones I could just delete without reading. It was a fairly uneventful day, really. Just like any other.
They do a couple things well to encourage you to return to work. They leave your office up, let you keep your e-mail address and phone number. It's very smart, actually, because the act of packing things up gives the whole event a finality, creating a psychological barrier.
I feel like I'm letting out for summer break.

The man formerly known as Rich

Went to a drink night at Brasa to toast Rich and Christina on their engagement. As more and more of the boys get engaged or become fathers, I realize the meaning and importance of the term "boys night out." You really have to grab those moments when you get them. Maybe it's because I'm following along the whole way there, but I really have no idea when they flip. They still seem the same, but suddenly there's this whole other side to their personality, the sensitive side they keep hidden away while in the company of men.
Those rings must be like the ring in Lord of the Rings. Everyone claims to want to go toss it into the cracks of Mt. Doom to destroy it, but then it seizes hold of their minds and drives them crazy so they put it on and get married.
Please, please, people. I'm just joking. On the positive side, I look forward to several kickin' bachelor parties this year.

Cast Away

Went out with Scott and the boys to dinner last night. He was back from his cross-country bike ride and had a beard that he'd grown during the trip. He looked like this.

Drob-nee-yax

Peja Drobnjak of the Seattle Supersonics has his own web page. The NBA must be getting desperate. Who will they market next?

Top 10 lists

Everyone's publishing their top 10 movie lists. I would, too, except I still haven't seen a lot of movies that qualify as 2002 releases. Harry Knowles' list ranks Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance at the top. Interesting. I passed on seeing it at the Seattle International Film Festival. Too bad. Film fests are all a crapshoot. I wish they'd let you watch trailers for all the movies before you fill out your film festival ticket requests.
Ebert's top 10 list puts Minority Report at the top. Good movie, but best of the year? Ebert's getting soft.
A.O. Scott, Stephen Holden, Elvis Mitchell, and Dave Kehr of the NYTimes all published their lists a short while ago. The only movie in common among all four of them? Talk to Her.
Has anyone seen it yet? I've spoken to lots of women who didn't enjoy it, which is really surprising for a Pedro movie.

Hi-def miniDV camcorder

Supposedly, JVC is coming out with a hi-def mini DVD camcorder! No model # listed, though. I'm itching to get myself a Panasonic DVX1000, but if the rumors are true, and if the camera shot in true 16 x 9, then I'd be tempted to wait.

Antwone Fisher

in , , , ,
"Who will cry for the little boy, lost and all alone?
Who will cry for the little boy, abandoned without his own?
Who will cry for the little boy? He cried himself to sleep.
Who will cry for the little boy? He never had for keeps.
Who will cry for the little boy? He walked the burning sand.
Who will cry for the little boy? The boy inside the man.
Who will cry for the little boy? Who knows well hurt and pain.
Who will cry for the little boy? He died and died again.
Who will cry for the little boy? A good boy he tried to be.
Who will cry for the little boy, who cries inside of me?"
- Antwone Fisher

Hi-def TIVO

Hi-def TIVO would be sweet, though I'll believe it once I see it. My first PVR was a ReplayTV which didn't work quite right. It was a free sample, though, so I can't complain. Then I bought a modified TIVO (didn't want to pay TIVO's monthly subscription so I bought one with a paid lifetime subscription) and modified it by adding a huge hard drive to give myself more recording space.
I hear people say that the reason PVR's don't sell well is that they're hard to explain to people. Well, those people aren't very bright.

Jim Ford's listening room

Thursday evening I got a treat. Jim Ford invited me to his house in Bellevue to test out his new listening room. I first met Jim on a project a few years back. He's a search software engineer, and we worked together on Amazon.com's movie showtimes site. Working with him was something I'll always remember because he was the consummate professional. Just did his job and did it well. Amazon's such a young company, and sometimes over the past five and a half years I've just taken for granted that co-workers may be occasionally moody, political, lazy, or high maintenance. Then I'll work with someone like Jim and remember the type of person we should all aspire to surround ourselves with.
Before Jim earned his Master's in computer science at the University of Illinois in Urbana, he was a music teacher. Now he's a successful software engineer, but he hasn't lost his love for music. He plays the upright bass, and over the past two years he's designed and built a music listening room as an addition to his house. It's the most impressive music room in someone's house that I've ever been to, and it rivals the best studio demo rooms I've been in. He worked with acousting engineers to design every last bit of it.
The room has all the essential qualities of an ideal listening room. It's dimensions are 15 x 20 feet, approximately, which is a good ratio. Of course the room is perfectly rectangular. He has sliding sound panels at the front and sides of the room, and they can be positioned to cancel standing waves and to optimize for different types of listening or playing. The ceiling is sloped so as not to reflect music back down on the listener. Hardwood floors all around. The back wall is the most interesting thing. It was custom designed using a series of cedar wood boards turned sideways and jutting out at different lengths. Each set of sixteen boards, each about an inch thick from the side, jut out in a varied series of lenghts which scatter the sound waves which hit the back wall. The door to the room is double hinged and is as thick as a bank vault door. When closed, a switch on the side drops a rubber lining to the bottom of the floor to prevent sound from escaping through the space beneath the door.
The entire back wall is a series of five doors. The first leads to a side entrance where musician friends can enter and exit the listening room. The next two doors open to the room which holds some storage space and his musical components, all of which are made by Musical Fidelity. The next door reveals a series of Boltz USA CD racks which are mounted on sliding rails. The last door leads to the rest of the house.
And then there are the speakers. B&W 802s (same as mine! great minds hear alike), a pair of them, at the front of the room, toed in to face the two sofa chairs seated side by side about two-thirds of the way back in the room. The entire feel of the room is spare and clean.
What was left but to pour ourselves a glass of Pinot Noir from the vineyards of New Zealand (where I'll be in about two weeks) and sit ourselves down for some listening. I brought some of my favorite CDs, and Jim had compiled a selection of recordings which would show off his system properly. I let Jim do the honors, as you never touch another man's home theater components (it's like driving another man's car without asking permission), and he started us off by loading Diana Krall's Love Scenes. I knew it would be a good night. Not only does Krall have a great voice, but she knows how to use it and her CD's are always impeccably engineered. She's a darling among audiophiles.
If you've never tested someone's listening room, all you really do is bring your favorite CDs and take turns suggesting tracks to listen to. Then you just sit back in the chair and close your eyes and listen to music. Afterwards you chat about the quality of the recording and the qualities of the sound in the performance. It sounds goofy, but if the listening room is engineered well, it's heaven.
Closing your eyes allows you to focus all your senses on the sound, and if everything comes together, then suddenly Diana Krall is standing on a stage about 10 feet away, singing tunes just for you. And there she was. The sound came through as transparent as can be, and that's the highest compliment you can pay an audio system.
Next came the grand daddy of classical showpieces, a track which has been copied in just about every sci-fi space movie soundtrack ever: Mars from Gustav Holtz's The Planets. The most acclaimed recording, and the one we used, is the recording by Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. You know that Memorex print ad where the guy sitting in the sofa is being literally blown away by music from the stereo in front of him? That was me.
Jim and his wife Kathy enjoy classical and jazz, so that's where we focused our evening's lineup. We moved next to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites, as played by Yo Yo Ma. This time we chose his earlier recording from 1983. It's been a long time since I've heard this piece, and the recording I own is the one by Janos Starker. Ma's interpretation is quite good, and the rich sound of his cello expanded to fill the room. I have to make a note to myself to get a copy of this recording.
And so it went. Jim and Kathy and I, just sitting in this soundproof (to the outside world) vault, with our eyes closed, just listening to one CD after another. Time started to slide away as my consciousness narrowed to just listen. It has been many months since I can remember feeling so relaxed, so at peace. I definitely think I've had too many demands and stimuli in my life this past year, and it has made me anxious, jittery, and impatient. In Jim's listening room, every CD sounded like a live performance, and I was content to reduce myself to a pair of appreciative ears. My pulse must have dropped below 40.
Among other fantastic recordings we sampled from, all of which I highly recommend for the audiophiles among you or those just looking to add a few great jazz and classical CDs to your collection:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack by Tan Dun and featuring Yo-Yo Ma
'58 Sessions by the Miles Davis Sextet with Bill Evans
Waltz for Debby by the Bill Evans Trio
From the Age of Swing by Dick Hyman
Lush Life by John Coltrane
Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus
I left Jim's place with a sudden desire to buy my own house and build my own listening room the very next day. You can't buy a house and hope to find a room ready made like this. My home theater is nice, but the odd shape of my room, the carpet, and the dimensions mean that it is pretty challenging acoustically. I don't find myself listening to CDs as much as I would in the past and had forgotten how transporting that can be, how amazing the B&W 802s can sound.
Three hours went by just like that. Jim finally opened the front door to his house and released me back into society. I stood in his driveway, slightly dazed.

Post-modern spam

I got a spam e-mail today with the subject line, "Tired of deleting spam e-mail?"

Best Buy PCs

in ,
I love my Mac Powerbook, but if I were to buy a Windows laptop I'd seriously consider the vpr Matrix 200A5 from Best Buy. Yeah, that's right, Best Buy! Who knew. Two Firewire ports? Sweet sweet.

Dwindling iPod batteries

Anytime a device has a rechargeable battery that can't be replaced, you worry about diminishing battery life. Looks like the iPod, great as it is, may suffer from the same problem. Bummer.

They came bearing gifts

in , , , ,
There are people who claim to not like receiving presents. When their birthdays come around, they ask you not to bring gifts to parties they host. If you ask them what they want for their birthday, or for Xmas, they say that your company is present enough.
What's wrong with these people?
I love getting presents. Things wrapped in colored paper. Cards, hand-written notes. Sometime later, after reading this, you may suddenly feel, "Gosh, that Eugene, he's a swell guy. When's the last time I showed him how much I love him? I need to get him something."
You'll want to act on this impulse. Trust your heart.
But instead of getting me something, what would really make me happy is if you'd make a donation to the American Cancer Society. Everytime someone I know loses someone to cancer, or someone I know passes away after a long battle from cancer, I think to myself that cancer is the most cruel teachers of the randomness of tragedy and suffering in this mortal sphere. Not as sudden as a heart attack or a fatal car accident, but longer, slower acting, more painful to the ones you love. it's not a sudden shock to your system. It begins as a shock to the system, then it's followed up by a series of emotional setbacks, then one final loss that you're almost numb to but aren't because you've convinced yourself that anyone that hangs on that long will pull through somehow. Physical and emotional attrition. All the time, you can hear the question being asked: do you still believe?

Music from a dream

The music in the new Two Towers trailer is from Requiem for a Dream. Good soundtrack, that was. You hear the music in this context and think it was from an action or adventure movie, but no, it's from an ensemble epiphany (think Magnolia) where a whole bunch of drug addicts are suffering from all sorts of horrific trauma.

Google Viewer

Can anyone get this Google Viewer to work? I just get a whole bunch of Javascript errors.
Google Labs are constantly cranking out wacky new services, like Google Webquotes. Must be a fun group to work in.

Hasselblad H1

So yes, I've slowly lost patience over the past few years. So the part of me that used to relish scanning negatives and slides and editing the images in Photoshop and then posting the images to web pages? It's dying. For a gadget freak, I've been very patient in holding out on the whole digital camera craze. The quality just hasn't been what I'd want yet. But cameras like the new Hasselblad H1 are oh so tempting. Fortunately this one would cost eighteen grand with a Kodak digital back so it's not as tempting as it could be.

Motorcycle wearable airbag

Saw this in slashdot today: a wearable motorcycle airbag vest. I've got to get one of these to wear during snowboarding! If I had one of these, who knows what sort of crazy things I'd be launching myself off of in the mountains.
As a motorcycle safety device? Well, I'm not sure how much good it would do. You'd bounce into the street and lay there like a giant bubble before a semi truck would run you over.

My Xmas gift to you, part II: Thwart telemarketers

in , , ,
Along the lines of my Google toolbar reco, here's another free gift to my loyal readers.
You can buy one of these devices to deter telemarketers or you can emulate it the low-tech way. Record the three tones you get when you dial a number that's out of service, add it to the front of your answering machine message. Computer assisted dialers will assume the number is dead and drop it off of their lists, while regular friends and family will hear your message afterwards and see how clever you are. I get a ton of telemarketing calls during the day and so my answering machine gets most of them. I plan on doing this over the holiday season. You can download the ring tones here.

My friend Oprah

Having the TV on is like having someone who really wants you to like him or her sitting in the room with you. When you're lonely, he or she will chat with you (the sex of the TV depends on the channel--Oprah is your emotionally honest aunt, ESPN your consummate sports buddy), and when you need some alone time he just sits in the corner, mumbling quietly to himself. I don't understand people who don't own TVs. They must not be as socially maladjusted as I am.

Joshua Malina and Danny Wuerffel

Finally caught up with all the West Wing episodes on the Tivo (sweeps month on the networks is a busy time for TV junkies). Looks like Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) is on the way out for sure now, and he's being replaced by Aaron Sorkin favorite Joshua Malina as Will Bailey. Malina has been in lots of other Sorkin productions (Sports Night, The American President). Sorkin likes to use the same people over and over again--hell, half of the West Wing seems to have stayed in the White House after The American President, with Martin Sheen moving from chief of staff up to president. I think it's because Sorkin prefers a certain snappy delivery of his dialogue and veterans of his shows have got it down pat. It's like David Mamet and his repeated use of people like Ricky Jay and his wife Rebecca Pidgeon, or Steve Spurrier and his loyalty towards lackeys like QBs Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews, the only ones who can tolerate his incessant criticism.

Netflix stays nimble

Okay, Netflix has responded to some gripes I've aired in the past (well, they didn't respond directly to me, but when you write something and then something happens shortly thereafter, you intuit causality, and given my vanity I attribute all positive changes to my inestimable influence). Almost all the DVDs in my rental queue are available immediately whereas many used to be listed with "long wait". Looks like they bought up. Secondly, they built a couple more shipping centers around the country so I can now mail a DVD back and receive the next one in my queue in about 4 days. It's noticeably faster.
Good thing, because they're getting some competition. There are a whole bunch of new online DVD rental services, and two big players, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart, have begun offering services of their own. Blockbuster's service is lousy--you still have to go pick up the movies and return them to a store--but in the end it's not a difficult business model to emulate. You don't have to buy lots of inventory, and the software is pretty straightforward. The types of changes Netflix is making are the ones they have to make, the no-brainers. The switching costs are very low.
The positive which should come out of all of this is lowered monthly rental subscription fees.

The good, the bad, the ugly

Good: TV shows which are letterboxed or widescreen.
Bad: My computer fan suddenly started whirring in a loud pulsing pattern, like it has a throbbing headache. Shut up!
Ugly: David Eckstein's throwing motion from shortstop.

The Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Edition

Watched the new extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD for Thanksgiving. Most extended editions or deleted scenes are, as DVD aficionados know, simply like high school yearbook photos of supermodels, or actors before makeup. They're the before pictures of movies before an editing room diet. Unattractive, unnecessary. We pay good money for the editing, supermodels pay good money for boob jobs, for a reason.
But the extended version of LOTR: FOTR is excellent. The 30 minutes or so of additional footage add to the depth of the story and the characters, enhancing your understanding of the regular edition of the movie. It's the best "director's cut" I've seen.

Vice

in , , ,
I was getting my hair cut tonight and picked up a copy of Vice magazine (I didn't feel like chatting with the lady cutting my hair; I always feel pressure to be social with the person cutting my hair, I don't know why). Funny stuff, this Vice magazine. First encountered it in NYC at an urban clothing store. It was free and lying in a stack by the front door.
There's an article in this month's issue evaluating 13 methods of "finding yourself." They're ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most effective.
Backpacking in Europe? Rates merely a 4.
Getting slutty with it? Rates the top score of 10. This one applies only to girls. It means sleeping around with men for the hell of it, and bossing them around. Hmm.
Then there's "the magic four." This is a method for guys only to find themselves and become a man. The magic four are: "1) break someone's heart; 2) have your heart broken; 3) get the shit beaten out of you; and 4) beat the shit out of someone. That means: 1) she has to be so f###ed up she almost kills herself. Like, doesn't eat for three days and falls down the stairs drunk; 2) you are so f***ed up you have to punch yourself in the head to stop thinking about her; 3) you end up in the hospital with a severaly broken nose and some sort of permanent facial scar; and 4) he's not really moving at the end. You're kind of kicking a blob." This rates a 9 on the finding yourself scale.
This one in particular caused my ears to perk up (well, not really, since my ears can't perk) because one of them is on my 30 before 30 list and I've accomplished 3 of the 4 already. I'm not telling you which is on my 30 before 30 list, or whether I accomplished it yet, or which 3 of the 4 I've checked off yet. If all of you got together, maybe you could piece it together. Wouldn't that be fun.
Cocaine rated a 3.5. Acid and mushrooms rated a 3. Ecstasy rated a 7.5. Maybe I should take some tonight before the Sigur Ros concert. They sing in a language they invented. It's called Hopelandic. I guess it's some derivative of Icelandic, though really I have no idea, like whether or not Julia Stiles is attractive.
Speaking of Vice, Grand Theft Auto III, the prequel to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, grossed $350 million. That's more than movies like The Matrix and Gladiator, and if it were a movie it would rank 7th all time domestically, behind Jurassic Park and ahead of Forrest Gump. Amazing. Geeks may not be filthy rich as in the late 90's, but the ones at Rockstar are still lording it over Hollywood. The interactivity of video games make them superior diversionary entertainment to all but the most engrossing of movies. Watching a bad movie is like being strapped to a dolly and wheeled around like Hannibal Lecter. Just got Splinter Cell tonight. Can't wait to try it out.
Speaking of being trapped, I was walking up to the front door of the gym tonight, and passing by the window I couldn't but think, as I stared at row after row of people dripping with sweat, working their arms and legs around spastically on elliptical cycles, stairmasters, and treadmills, all under the artificial blue glow of fluorescent lamps, that if you brought someone from 100 years ago here into the present and allowed them to look into this health club facility and observe the people in there, they'd think it was some form of slavery or imprisonment. If I were to make a movie like Baraka, I'd juxtapose this shot of people working out at the gym with a shot of Charlton Heston and his slave buddies rowing in the stomach of a Roman galley in Ben Hur. Seriously, going to the gym is torture, the supreme manifestation of our society's vanity. If I didn't have to rehab my shoulder after my bike accident I'd cancel my membership.
While watching Die Another Day this weekend, I saw the trailer for the new J. Lo movie Maid in Manhattan. Yep, J. Lo plays a hotel maid who gets discovered by some rich dude played by Ralph Fiennes. It's a variant of the Pretty Woman hooker with a heart of gold story, only with a maid instead of a hooker because J. Lo ain't no trashy ho, despite being ready to move onto husband number 82, the bland Ben Affleck. I could barely contain an evil cackle as I saw faces of boyfriends and husbands throughout the theater blanche at the thought of having to attend this movie with their girlfriends or spouses. Has a British accent done more for anyone than it has for Ralph Fiennes? On that alone, some people consider him some gifted thespian. Give me a break. He's not that much better than that guy who plays Furio on The Sopranos this season (that guy, whoever he is, is one reason the show is a bit flat this season).
On the way back from a play at the Seattle Rep this weekend, I looked down at my radio and instead of a station number the display flashed a series of words. It was an ad for an upcoming concert, listing some of the artists and a phone number to call for tickets. Strange. Then, when a song came on, the radio displayed the title and artist. I didn't realize radio stations could broadcast that info now. Of course, sometime soon I'll probably be looking down for the title of some catchy tune and drive into the trunk of the guy in front of me.
I didn't join Rachael in an effort to scalp tickets to "Legends of Hip Hop" last night. My mistake. Turns out she got a seat from someone whose friend failed to show. Damn.
I really hate it when other people have power over me. My mood. My state of mind.
What am I ranting about?

Marge's boob job

in , ,
The Simpsons were in rare form tonight. Marge got an inadvertent boob job and everyone started treating her extra special. She's driving back from the plastic surgery clinic with Maggie in the passenger seat, and Who Let the Dogs Out is playing on the radio. And next week, the Simpsons spoof The Osbournes and reality TV.
BTW, the best new TV title sequence music is from Michael Mann's Robbery Homicide Division.
I've been exhausted all weekend. It doesn't take much to throw off my sleep cycle anymore, and it takes a lot to get it back. Still, I did manage to catch up with lots of people this weekend as I slowly crawl out of hermit status.

Holiday shopper's guide Part 1

Some ideas for things to get those special people in your life this holiday season, because being a classy gift-giver requires simply some sage guidance and a Visa. Some of this I've read about, some is just personal opinion. I think all this stuff is available online--I refuse to fight for holiday parking anymore and neither should you. Spend that time with those special people instead.
What do you all suggest as good gifts for this holiday season? Help educate so that we all end up with stuff that doesn't need to be returned, which means driving to a store, depleting fossil fuels and polluting the environment.
Ah, I can't wait for the holidays, when the mouths of my friends and family are filled with pretty lies and their arms bear gifts.

What's better

That's a question, not a statement. I was glad to see Large Marge (scary trucker lady face from Pee Wee's Big Adventure) kicking Kroger's butt.

Sniff, sniff--"Hey, do you smell something burning?"

What does it say about bloggers and their sense of humor that 3 of the top 10 most linked to stories in weblogs today were about this guy who burned his, umm, member with a laptop. Let me note that I write this on my laptop which is resting on my lap, but with a protective piece of cardboard to separate titanium from skin.

Random thoughts

in , , , ,
New fiction editor at The New Yorker. A good thing, I think. The fiction there needs some more crackle.
The Sopranos isn't as good this year. Too many random story threads that don't move along quickly enough.
The West Wing hasn't been stellar either, though the last episode was good. After a while I wish Sorkin would put some flesh and blood in his liberal puppets. Let Seaborn hook up with Leo's daughter. Have Josh fall prey to Donna's charms one late night at the office.
Woody speaks out agains the war. Woody! When I think Woody, I think of Indecent Proposal, where he is holding that brick, giving a lecture on architecture, John Barry's lush score rising to a crest of emotion as Woody proclaims, "Even a brick wants to be more than a brick." Woody?
Any concert with a big name that's worth seeing in Seattle sells out instantly. If you're not ready to redial Ticketmaster on Saturday morning like a spastic 13 year old girl trying to get N'Sync concert tickets, you're totally out of luck. When you get through, you'll be put on hold for about half an hour, at which point some Ticketmaster agent will try to upsell you on four different Ticketmaster magazines and two different overpriced Ticketmaster services before giving you two tickets in a section you don't want to sit, and they'll charge you $8.25 per ticket as a handling charge. Someone break down this handling charge for me--I'm sorry, is Gisele Bundchen going to hand deliver my tickets, because that bored phone rep on the other end of the line sure isn't lifting a finger, judging from the passion in her reading of the sales script in front of her. Dealing with Ticketmaster is like being forced to watch Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood or Riding Cars with Boys in a shitty movie theater with unhinged seats covered in gum from viewers from a few months back. Anyway, back to the point of this whole thing...if Beck brings the Flaming Lips to Benaroya and I miss out, I am moving.
A very sweet Dell customer service representative with a Southern accent agreed to offer me a refund on the RAM which Dell convinced me to purchase and which failed to work in my computer because of some strange limitation in the way Rambus RAM has to be configured. That was the highlight of my day. PCNation.com, on the other hand, still hasn't shipped my photo printer and has no idea where it is. It's been three months now.

A start

Last Saturday afternoon, I dropped my car off for a repair, and they told me they needed to keep it longer than expected. So there I was, stranded without wheels for five hours. I could have taken the shuttle home, but I had my laptop with me, and in a moment which in a movie would be one of those subtle and crucial turning points in a character's development.
I climb into the car dealer shuttle, and the driver asks me where I want to go. Home, I almost say. The office, I should respond. But after weeks of living in Amazon headquarters all day, and after a morning of working through bug lists on e-mail, I need a break. My brain is cooked.
I could head downtown and shop, buy myself something. But it's a habit I distrust, this self-indulgence after spurts of industriousness. Strikes me as weakness--after all, I want the freedom to get something when I need it, whenever that may be.
Take me downtown, I say. I realize I need to take my watch in for a new battery, so I can start with that, deferring my decision for a bit. Besides, I have my laptop with me, and an idea is sprouting in the corner of my mind.
People everywhere downtown. When I first came to Seattle, it was pretty desolate downtown on the weekends for a big city. Now, with Pacific Place's parking lot (the most crucial cog in the revival of Seattle's downtown commerce in all the time I've been here) and all the big shops lining 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th St., people stream up and down the veins of downtown like they do in the heart of any bustling metropolis. Just being outside, everyone all around, gives me energy.
Four hours to kill. I know what I have to do. I've said it before, so I must take some of my own medicine. I find the nearest Starbucks (in Seattle, that means I just turn around), walk in, pop out my laptop and plug it into the wall, pull out my iPod and pop in my headphones, crank up the tunes, and start writing.
I have this germ of an idea for a screenplay, and some source material with me. So I pull that out of my bag and begin jotting out an outline. Three acts. No wait, it feels more like four. Non-conventional, but when you're in draft mode anything goes. I can always pare it back later.
Back in school, I'd do this once a week, or whenever the mood struck. This outlining. That way I always had skeletons or crude sketches of all sorts of stories in my pocket at any point in time. Finish one story, and instead of reading it, I'd move on to some other story skeleton and give it some flesh and guts. Then, later, I'd pull the completed story back out and re-read it with a critical eye.
I can't always write to music, but the the joy of the iPod is that it stores a gazillion songs and provides just enough noise to drown out the sound of the espresso machine and all the strangers around me. Four hours later, I have a 6 page outline. Four acts of about 21 scenes each. Obviously too long, this is more like a two part miniseries, but always better to have a mind pregnant with ideas than to engage in a staring contest with a solid block of whitespace.
It's been a long time since I've written. It feels good. I know I've got a long night ahead at the office, but I'm flush with writer's high, the satisfaction of the artist who has just surfaced from a long swim in the depths of his craft. Maybe that's too florid a description. But then, writing is not always that fluid and enjoyable a process, so those chances I get to romanticize it? I grab them. Later when I'm struggling I can look back and remind myself that good times lie ahead.

Shock jocks

in , ,
Mornings right now are brutal because my right shoulder, which I separated in the bike accident, is so stiff after a long night of inactivity. I never realized how important the shoulder is in so many movements until now. I was lying there trying to roll myself over and up out of bed without using my right arm; basically, I was stuck.
On popped my radio alarm clock, and it was some shock jock engaged in a heated debate with some caller. And, I'm not making any of this up, this is the conversation they were having:
Jock (shouting): Next time I see a cyclist in the road, I'm running him over! GET OUT OF THE ROAD! I'm so sick of these damn cyclists!
Caller: Cyclists should be treated like cars. You should wait until it's clear to pass.
Jock (shouting): Cyclists are two-wheeled wimps. They are not the same as cars. Get on the sidewalk. Get out of the road. I'm so sick of cyclists while driving in Capitol Hill.
Caller: You're stupid.
Jock (shouting): I'm stupid?! I'm stupid?! You're an idiot. I see you on the road, I'm running you over.
Caller: How about I come over there and beat you up.
Jock (shouting): You want to come beat me up? Come on in. I'll kick your ass.
I'm not sure what radio station it was, but it was the same guy I've listened to on the radio every morning since I got to Seattle. Basically, with my cheap clock radio, I'm relegated to leaving it on the one radio station I get good reception on, or using the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP heart-attack-inducing siren that all alarm clocks are loaded with at the factory. This guy is a moron (so was the caller, but given my bike incident, I was locked on the DJ). I wanted to head over to the radio station and throttle the guy with his headphone cord.
Seriously, 95% of radio station shock jocks are simple-minded monkeys intended to boost radio interest through their controversial, inflammatory rhetoric. Like sports radio hosts who don't know the first thing about sports. They sit in the studios, behind the glass, insulated from all human contact like a circus freak, shouting at callers through microphones from their cells, making prank phone calls to random people for kicks. Why do we have to put up with these idiots?
On my way home from work late tonight, a prostitute was standing in the road near the intersection of Massachusetts and Rainier. I stopped because I thought she was crossing the street, but she didn't move. Instead, she made hand gestures and asked if she could get in the car. I waved her off and drove around her, and she started cursing at me using language not suitable for my PG-13 blog.
Fortunately, in between the morning and the evening, I was at the office where most of my coworkers were sane.
Segway

I saw my first Segway rider in public today. Some guy cruised by as I drove to work this morning. It was a rough neighborhood, too. I guess he wasn't too worried about getting Segway-jacked in broad daylight.
I look forward to the day when a healthy Segway after-market of parts and modifications exist so that people can lower their Segways, add chrome hubs, neon highlights, and 400 watt subwoofers. Well, I don't look forward to it, but you know what I mean...never mind.

Digital cameras--is it their time?

in , ,
Luminous Landscape has done a field test on the new Canon EOS 1Ds 11 megapixel digital camera. Exciting results, as it appears that digital is making huge inroads on film. Of course, some people will continue to raise the flag of analog, much as some people refuse to buy CDs while hanging on to their LP collections for dear life.
At some point, though, the cost equation will work out such that digital is more economical. Perhaps not at the price of this Canon (currently list price is $8,999!) but very soon. I really wish Nikon would come out with a high end body with this type of resolution soon. Even more exciting, these new digital cameras will shoot full-frame, without any magnification factor. It's a huge leap forward in the digital camera arena.
This, added up with the fact that you can preview digital photos, change the ISO on the fly, never have to worry about what type of film you have in the body (color or B&W) or carry two camera bodies, and avoid the delay and cost of film processing and scaning means I'll be in the market for the next high end Nikon digital camera body if I can afford it (the Kodak DCS Pro 14n is based on a Nikon body and promises 14 megapixels, but I haven't read any reviews of it yet).

I...love...football on TV

Sometime over the weekend, maybe it was last week, the intro to Sportscenter consisted of a spoof of those Coors Light football commercials. You know, the ones that go, "I...love...football on TV...shots of Gena Lee...and those twins." Or, whatever it is they say. Anyone, some news anchor clearly spent a lot of time writing up that intro, and I just want to applaud his creativity. I wish I had it on tape. Anyway, instead of those blond twins, the anchor substituted the Minnesota Twins.
All the underdogs have won in the baseball playoffs so far. The perfect rebuke to Bud Selig and his pronouncements of doom.
Go Twinkies.

Super size it

in ,
Addendum to my Fall TV recommendations. Purchase a TIVO, open it up, and stick in a humongous hard drive. Not hard to find instructions and kits for sale on the web. Or pay someone else to do it for you. Never miss another television show in your life. I have several full seasons of TV shows on my TIVO, and no idea when I'll ever watch any of it. But it feels good, like a chipmunk hoarding walnuts months before winter hits. The only thing the TIVO needs is the ability to tape AC-3 signals off of a satellite feed, or a DVD. Besides that, I can't complain.

Exchange

We migrated to Microsoft Exchange at work. So Microsoft Outlook now governs my life. The calendaring function works fine enough. But for e-mail, for some strange reason, the program isn't smart enough to ask people which of my e-mail addresses to use when they send me messages. Somehow, probably because I sent someone at work a message from my home e-mail, I now receive all sorts of work e-mail at my home e-mail address.
I could configure Outlook to pull my personal e-mail into a separate account at work, but I like to keep my two worlds separate. You get home, thinking you'll get an hour to eat dinner, read the day's mail, and then sit on my sofa and drool for an hour before passing out. Then you open your e-mail and find, much to your dismay, ten work e-mail messages, some with the dreaded red exclamation point! Worlds are colliding!

Calling the raise

Saddam came back with a very smart political counter--he granted U.N. inspectors unconditional access to Iraq. Not much to do except take his word on it and send the inspection crews back in. Any grumbling from Washington, and there's been some, will undermine the multilateral support the Bush administration has just managed to muster in the past week. Bush and his team have to think on the fly.

Safety, and boredom, in numbers

I'm at the age where some truths become quite evident. At the top of that list right now, or at least at the top of my mind, is how boring your friends become when they enter a relationship. Infinitely interesting to each other, mind-numbingly dull to the rest of us.
Every now and then one of them gets a night off from their other half, so they look you up for something, and you spend the whole time listening to them discuss their fairly uninteresting relationship.
I give up on asking anyone in a relationship to do anything other than bring their mate out to other events with other couples. It's a lousy investment of time--they rarely come through. It's like giving the ball to Chris Webber with the clock running down and your team down by one. He'll either call a timeout or toss the ball to someone else. Sorry, too many sports references. Mmm, how about: it's like asking Winona Ryder not to date malnourished male lead singers.
I need an editor.
I'm offending many readers, and I'll receive a few well-written pleas of innocence, but the rest of you know who you are. This is one of those generalizations that you laugh off with your friends in the early twenties, and then suddenly you realize you're the last one laughing and everyone else is sitting there stone silent or looking off sheepishly (a scene which only happens in TV sitcoms, yes, but you get the point). Then they look at their watch, mutter something under their breath, and slink off to look at carpet or see My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
P.S.: Yes, some single people are dull, too, but that's because they're dull to begin with. The tragedy of the 1+1=0 couple is that usually they were actually charismatic before they hooked up. We need a name for this syndrome, and it should be the name of some dull couple.
P.P.S: Sorry, I take it all back, I love all my friends who are in relationships, or married, or have kids. It must be the long hours at the office talking. Sometimes I read some of my old entries and think, "What a santimonious ass." I need a mood indicator on my website, and right now it would be red--cantankerous and sarcastic.
Please please tell me about My Big Fat Greek Wedding, because I haven't seen it yet.
In addition to an editor, I think I need a therapist. A Dr. Melfi. It's like a high school counselor for wealthy people. I can't afford one. Sometimes in conversation I just feel like throwing in, "My therapist thinks I should..." It's just a great line to insert in conversation.

Fits and starts

in ,
A stretch of two weeks with little sleep, lots of stress, and no time on the bike has left me ragged. I can tell when I'm red-lining by the quality of my sleep. I meant to sleep in this morning as it was a Saturday, but despite rolling around in bed until 3 in the morning, I got up at 8:00 feeling tired and sleepy but unable to achieve REM. I hate this inability to sleep in on Saturday mornings. There must be some sort of remedy--maybe I need to do a long ride on Friday night.
I passed out on the sofa at noon and had a nightmare in which a friend and I were under attack by the U.S. army. We were hiding out in some house across the street from a gas station, out in the middle of nowhere, and an entire legion of tanks, helicopters, and soldiers were putting us under heavy fire. Fortunately, there was a gigantic, mounted machine gun (the kind you see on battleships, with a cockpit) and I was sitting in it returning fire, blowing helicopters out of the sky, shredding soldiers with gunfire like they were cardboard targets. Then I threw about four grenades across the street at the gas station and my friend and I sprinted into the house as the whole world blew up behind us. In the garage, we located a gold Camry with keys in the ignition. I told my friend (can't remember who it was) to get the car started and rushed back into the house to pick up some weapons for the road. We were fugitives now.
Up the stairs and into the bedroom where I begin throwing weapons into a duffel bag. Voices behind me. The door shatters inwards and a whole bunch of soldiers in riot gear rush in, jump me, and begin beating me with their feet and rifle butts. I wake up with my heart going double time.
It's one of those dreams which I knew immediately was about work in a way that only the dreamer can interpret in a way that's more than intuition. It's that direct channel to the subconscious.
The few times I save an evening or a few hours for myself, it feels like I'm coming up for air after a long time underwater. Big heaving gulps, blinded by sunlight, look around to get bearings, and then down below again. Hard to keep much of a social calendar when all the desirable hours are blocked off. Cancel an appointment with someone and my next open spot is two weeks later. Since I'm not a restaurant, that's nothing to be proud of.

Why don't they just make the phone out of that stuff

Late in the office one night last week, I heard a cell phone going off in the office next door to mine. At the same time, the picture on my monitor began vibrating with each ring, producing a buzzing noise at the same time. I'm used to seeing that type of disturbance when my own cell phone goes off, but this phone was ringing on the other side of a wall! Frightening.
Maybe I need to fly to Europe next year and purchase a pair of these.
Speaking of design, is there any lower quality product than the plastic CD jewel case? Just about one out of two CDs I receive in the mail arrives in a cracked jewel case. You would think after decades of study in the field of plastics that they could design a CD case that wouldn't crack if dropped on the ground. Music labels probably contract out for the lowest grade plastic available to maximize their already ridiculous profit margins on each CD sold. In a day and age when most people with computers have CD burners and can buy blank CD-Rs in bulk for next to nothing, the continued existence of $14.99 price points on new CDs is an affront to consumer intelligence.