Peace out

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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

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"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?"

Me an uncle!

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Yeah! As of today, I have a nephew. Ryan Samuel Ho. Congrats to Alan and Sharon on their beautiful new baby boy! Can't wait to meet the heir to the throne.
Hmm, I wonder if this means I have to be responsible now. Or maybe I can be the uncle that takes Ryan out for his first drink and his first cigar, and teaches him to drive stick when he isn't of age yet. It's not a glamorous role, but there's a black sheep uncle in every family.
Ben looks like he'll be a father any hour now, also. I try to imagine what it must feel like to be an expectant father on the brink, but I really can't.

Hero

Audrey was in Hong Kong over holiday break and got to see Hero. No words in the English language, but perhaps one or two in Mandarin, can express my jealousy. I am tempted to move up my Hong Kong trip so I can catch it in theaters over there.
She was sweet enough to bring me back the Making of Hero VCD, and I'm debating whether I should watch it. The risk of getting spoiled seems too great.

Gravity moves at the speed of light

Interesting--I hadn't realized that gravity moved at the speed of light, but a recent experiment confirms what Einstein had long suspected.
The implication is that gravity between bodies does not work instantaneously. For example, it takes gravitational waves 8.3 minutes to make it from the Sun to the Earth, so if the Sun suddenly disappeared, we'd have an 8.3 minute grace period before Earth shot off into space.
Of course, larger bodies exert stronger gravitational pull because of their mass, and I'm so massive right now I see people swerve towards me as I pass them in the halls.

Maybe they're undercover cops

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I was standing in line for a screening of Narc tonight with Peter, and I couldn't help but be reminded that people who attend movie screenings are frightening. Who are these people? Do they have jobs? Why have they not showered in several days? Do they have any friends? Movie geeks are a frightening lot. The Stranger, or maybe it was the Seattle Weekly, had a term for these movie buffs: passholes (because they always buy the full-series passes for the Seattle Film Festival).
Of course, my snobbery doesn't hide the fact that I'm often among them. I like to think I raise the curve with my sharp dress, razor wit, and roguish charm.

XP = Xtremely Painful

I recently upgraded my desktop PC to Windows XP from Windows 2000 Pro so that I could use remote desktop access with my Mac laptop. I downloaded Dell's upgrade advisor to analyze whether or not my PC and its software were XP upgradeable. After making a few corrections, it seemed I was ready for a step up in the world.
Wrong.
I've got serious problems. First, turns out my soundcard drivers are not XP compatible, and it doesn't look like Cirrus Semiconductor plans to release any such drivers. All I hear out of my computer's speakers are high-pitched screeches. Second, my CD-RW drive? Not Easy CD Creator 5 compatible, but unfortunately Easy CD Creator 4 is not Windows XP compatible. Greeeeaaat. Thanks Dell. Thanks Microsoft. Thanks Roxio. Looks like I may have to buy a new CD-RW drive and a new soundcard, and even then I'm not sure it will help.
Furthermore, it turns out you can't roll back Windows XP upgrades from Windows 2000 Pro. I'm really peeved. There's nothing more lacking in the world than PC support. Software is so damn complicated--if you have a computer problem and no computer genius for a friend, you're really SOL. I am none too pleased with my tech brethren across Lake Washington.
It's not just the problems I have with their software. For all the money they spend on research, and for all their market share and brilliant employees, they are amazingly uninventive.
In hindsight, I should have let the sleeping dog lie. If you can get a Windows PC to a point where it doesn't crash every other day, don't mess with it. The grass on the other side is yellow, wilted, and plagued with weeds.

What a day it has been

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Notes on revisiting The Two Towers for a second time:
--Gollum is just as captivating the 2nd time around. He has the most expressive eyes this side of Elijah Wood, and his physical motion is amazingly distinctive and lifelike. CGI characters are a new art form, and Gollum is its new Mona Lisa.
--You have to see the movie twice just to see every detail in every part of the screen. Those swooping, soaring camera shots contain frames that show so much, especially during the battle of Helm's Deep and the attack of Isengard by the Ents. If you divided the screen into three quadrants, left, right, and middle, something different is occurring in each.
--The battle scenes are incredible in their scale, and Jackson shows that using computers to animate soldiers allows you to stage a battle with literally 10,000 soldiers on one side without having to hire out half a country to don costumes.
--Despite the scale and complexity of the fight scenes, you always know exactly where each character is and what's going on. That takes skill. The overhead crane shots illustrate exactly how Helm's Deep is laid out and where different battles are occurring. In one incredible shot, you see Orcs rushing through a breach in the wall in the left third of the screen, archers repelling Orcs on ladders in the center of the screen, and Orcs pounding at the main gate in the right quadrant, all in one 5 second shot. It's an amazingly skillful shot, pulled off using a combination of CGI and actual camera footage.

What a night it has been

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I have so many stories to tell, from this past weekend, tonight. And I can't tell any of them. As much as a blog is public, so I am such a private person. What an odd hobby for me. Someone told me once that she always felt that there was this part of me that was alone and hidden away, and she was probably right. Some people have this fascination with trying to peel away all the layers of this cocoon I live in, to see what's hidden in there. Others probably just think I'm dull.
Tonight I attended a charity screening of The Two Towers. How I got a ticket is one of those stories maybe I'll tell someday. Anyway, I won't give away any plot spoilers about the movie because I want everyone to see it fresh. Robbing someone of seeing this movie for the first time would be a first-degree crime. But I just want to say that it was so much fun I nearly soiled my pants.
Peter Jackson has figured out how to tap the majesty of the heroism at the heart of the books and channel it on screen with grandeur that pulls LOTR geeks and the average Joe and even film snobs' hearts out of their chests. The animation of Gollum/Smeagol is brilliant--what Jar Jar Binks wishes he could be as a fully-realized digital character.
Two flaws. One, this movie is clearly part of a trilogy. As a stand-alone movie it is exciting but would lose some dramatic tension. Second, as a rip-roaring action movie it lacks some depth and complexity of character. When Gollum is perhaps your most sharply conflicted character, you know it's a plot-driven tale. The rest of the cast have become almost character actors.
Still, every character's face is perfect for the role, and if the adventure and action tale are the heart of this movie, what a rousing payoff it is. A couple times the audience burst out in applause or gasped with pleasure, and the sheer love of movies and joy in the theater was palpable. I'm taking 39 of my Seattle friends and favorite coworkers to see it as a Xmas gift this Wednesday morning and I can't wait to see it in their company. Watching a movie with friends and seeing them thrilled is more fun than enjoying it myself, and I'm sure others know what I mean. It's the only time I can say that the happiness of others is better than my own happiness and not sound like a phony.
(I'm finding it hard to sleep recently, as you can tell from the time of my posts. Before I leave for holiday vacations, I always find it hard to sleep. The excitement of seeing family again, going home and hanging out with my brothers and sisters, it's a natural shot of adrenaline. And then there's the added emotional confusion of taking this leave of absence, and the realization that the movie screening might be the last time I see some of them for a long time. Forever? I try not to think that way, and yes, I haven't decided for sure one way or the other, but the possibility, small or large as it may be, is hard to dismiss. There's a scene in The Two Towers which discusses whether or not someone will see someone ever again, and the words weighed on me (read too much Tolkien and I'll start writing lines like that. "His words weighed on me like a dark portent. My face turned ashen." Melodramatic, but ah, such gravitas when read by a sullen Viggo Mortensen. Okay, no more nested parentheticals.) If it is a last dance, though, what better way than to spend it at an opening day showing of a huge blockbuster movie at a state-of-the-art audio/visual arena like Cinerama in the company of comrades? Those who know me know how many of my buttons that presses.)
I have the soundtrack to The Two Towers (another winner from Howard Shore) and have been listening to it non-stop in my car, and there's one track which I latched onto today. Track 16, "Forth Eorlingas". There's a stretch of it that's just magical, from 2:14 to 2:42, and I listened to it probably 10 to 15 times today before seeing the movie. I had no idea when it would be used. Then, suddenly, I heard it in the background, and wouldn't you know it, the scene just happened to be perhaps the climax of the movie, a point when your spirit just goes soaring, and when the music reached its stride my throat was somewhere on the ceiling. Sometimes in life we experience these small emotional coincidences and the human mind can't help but see them as epiphanies. I'll always remember it as one of my favorite moviegoing moments.
I was sitting in the fifth row, and at the immense Cinerama theater that's overwhelming, especially for an action flick. The battle scenes with handheld shots left me dizzy, but the overall experience was one of being swallowed by the screen, overwhelmed by the pageantry. John Rhys Davies, Gimli the dwarf, voice of Treebeard, made an appearance and welcomed us to enjoy this masterpiece.
After the movie, we all got goodie bags. I felt like I was at the Oscars. I haven't flipped through my bag yet, but I saw a copy of the DVD of the first movie, a copy of the Two Towers novel, and some other stuff. It's a bonus awaiting me in the morning, like Prince Charming waking up to find a glass slipper in his hand to let him know it wasn't all some dream.
And then, after the movie....well, there's another story for another night. I'm exhausted. Time to sleep. Suffice it to say, what a night it has been.

About About Schmidt

I took Peter to a special screening of About Schmidt on Sunday night. Jim Taylor, the co-writer, was in attendance with his family. A few thoughts (minor spoilers ahead for those who want to see it fresh):

  • Jack Nicholson gives a first-rate performance. No doubt. As Jim Taylor noted in Q&A afterwards, Jack was told by Alexander Payne (co-writer with Jim Taylor and director on this and Citizen Ruth and Election and Jurassic Park III) to "play a small man" and he does. In doing so, he proves that he still earns his keep, unlike others from his generation. He does so much in this movie, from the pacing of his line readings to actual physical comedy, and it's all superb.

  • Still, I didn't believe that he was anyone other than Jack. Not because of his performance, but because he's Jack. I'm not sure there's anyway around that other than to cast someone else. In fact, it was funny because when Jack's wife first comes on screen I thought it was his mother, perhaps, because I'm so used to seeing Jack with the Lara Flynn Boyle's of the world. Nothing in his actual acting screamed "Jack" but someone with his career and pedigree and fame just can't be an ordinary person. He's larger than life.

  • Taylor and Payne have smart, razor sharp knives in their arsenal, and they use them all to slice their subjects to pieces. There's this line from the movie, "Dear Ndugu," and I laughed like a madman every time I heard it, and it appears many times. The small-town folk from Omaha Nebraska are hilarious in their provinciality.
  • I felt a bit uncomfortable by the end of the movie because watching obviously smart and clever city guys like Taylor and Payne pick apart small-town folk like the ones played by Kathy Bates and Dermot Mulroney (unrecognizable!!) would be like watching Alan Dershowitz cross-examine George Bush or something like that. It's a heavyweight bullying the village idiot. I've read reviews that claim this is a humanistics movie, and someone even thanked Taylor for making these characters sympathetic. Huh?! Please watch the movie (it's quite entertaining) and see if you agree with me. I though those characters were set up for merciless ridicule.

It was, uh, neat

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Is it okay to diss a play or concert or whatever if someone gets you tickets for it? Maybe only if I was Larry David. I think it would make a good episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld. Someone takes you to a movie or play, and then afterwards they ask you what you thought. Are you allowed to say you didn't like it?
On the one hand, any opinionated semi-snob feels it's beneath themselves to praise mediocrity. After all, there's the sanctity of one's taste and intellectual integrity to preserve. On the other hand, it does seem somewhat rude. I mean, here you are, enjoying the pleasure of a friend. Why go cause all that unpleasantness? Plus, they might not invite you out next time, and who knows, maybe they'll pick a winner (that last line sounds so much like something George would think).
I admit, I try to avoid the situation by asking the gift horse what they thought first. If they didn't enjoy it, I'm more likely to let loose with my true feelings. If they enjoyed it and ask me what I thought I'll try and find a few things I liked. Seriously, it's like someone asks you if you enjoyed the music at their wedding. What are you going to say?
I'm going to write this into an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I know they supposedly improvise all that, but I'll send it in anyway.

See what?

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I'm always intrigued by movies that draw a sharply polarized critical response. Solaris and Femme Fatale are two notable examples.
Bill gave me a copy of the DVD of Tarkovsky's version of Solaris--any movie that spans two DVDs is intimidating to even contemplate. I definitely think I'll need to be in a meditative mood to absorb it, and right now is not that time. But it's a movie about loss, and how we know if other people are real, and those are interesting questions.
Meanwhile, I don't think I'll make it out to see Femme Fatale because anyone you ask to go see that movie thinks it's some soft porn film. The fact that it stars Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in a variety of skimp outfits doesn't help. Man, doesn't anyone in this generation know who Brian de Palma is? Oh well, I guess it's a rental.

My Xmas gift to you, part II: Thwart telemarketers

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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.

Gollum's Song

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Geeks everywhere are counting down the days, not to Christmas, but to Dec. 18, when Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers opens in thousands of theaters across the country. The soundtrack will go on sale 12/10; there's an exclusive limited edition version of the soundtrack only available over the Internet now for $30. At the soundtrack site you can also download one of the tracks, Gollum's Song, in Windows Media Format. The orchestral portions of the track sound very promising, though Emiliana Torrini's vocals are grating. What, was Enya booked, or did they want someone that sounded like a female Gollum to do the title justice?
BTW, tickets are on sale for opening night of The Two Towers already at Movietickets.com. The fabulous Cinerama posted their showtimes yesterday or today. The midnight showing opening day is sold out, so I grabbed a whole bunch of tickets for my team and coworkers for the 7:45am showing. I think I may also attend the Northwest premier charity screening on Dec. 16, though, as a Christmas gift to myself. Have I been naughty or nice this year? It's hard to tell. But it is for charity--I think it's for the Cascades Conservation. Hell, I like trees, and it's tax deductible.

Vice

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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?

Blown away

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I've had issues to work out this week. The easiest way to do so is by working out. Saturday I hoped for a break in the weather so I could get out on my bike. Since my accident, I haven't been outdoors on my bike, and among other things, I wanted to overcome a calcifying mental block about riding around Mercer Island.
All day, the rain came down in patches while the wind was strong enough to rattle my windows. Not a good sign. I waited, cleaning my room, watching TV, reading, doing my laundry. I called Rachael to see if she'd be crazy enough to meet me out. A companion would mitigate the pain of being outside in lousy weather. Nope, she was too sane for that.
Finally, at 4:00pm, I glimpsed a brief patch of blue sky way out over the Olympics. Close enough. I quickly donned every warm-weather cycling item I owned, which took a while. Bundled up like a scuba diver in layers of high tech synthetics, I emerged into the darkening grey afternoon.
About 40 feet out of the driveway, I knew it was a bad idea. The wind was howling, and I had to grip the handlebars as tightly as possible to keep my bike from twisting in the wind. On the I-90 bridge, it was worse. The ice-cold wind seemed to be blowing in all directions. It was in my face, and it attacked me from both sides. I've never felt my bike pitching and bucking underneath me with such violence. By the time I summited the hill on the other side my hands and forearms were sore from gripping the bars so tightly.
On Mercer Ave., the mental challenges continued. The rain and wet leaves on the pavement formed a slick surface, and I couldn't shake the image of a wipeout every time I turned. Drivers on Mercer Island have no patience for cyclists and so they buzzed by me to the left, even in sharp turns where they had no way to see if a car was coming in the other direction. If a car did emerge in the other lane and the car in my lane swerved to the right to avoid a collision, my bike and I would be swept off the road off the edge of the hill inter the trees. Meanwhile, the wind continued to gust in rage, and all the trees on Mercer shrieked as the leaves were ripped from their branches.
Halfway around the island, with little light left in the day, I stopped and turned around. The sun was setting earlier than I had anticipated. If I continued on around the island, I'd be finishing in blackness. That would be idiocy. As it was, when I reached I-90 again it was too dark to pick out the terrain of the road anymore. If I haven't exhausted my reservoir of hyperbole, the wind was worse on the return trip across the bridge. It always is.
I finally pulled into the driveway, having seen not a single other cyclist or jogger out on the road. That was definitely the worst weather I've biked in. In retrospect, not the smartest decision.
Still, it's a start on my comeback. It's not quite Maverick in Top Gun, unable to engage in a dogfight after losing Goose in that freak accident, but something like that.
The Two Towers

I finally finished rereading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Reading that tome is an epic quest in itself, one that parallels that of Frodo himself. Not always the fastest read, especially with all those declarative sentences.
Nevertheless, there's enough there that I can't wait to see the movie hit the big screen. How will they depict the Ents, the massive battle scene, and finally Shelob? The heart of a film geek sings.

Oops Part I

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Sleep deprivation began catching up with me today at the office, so I downed two cans of Red Bull. I'd never really tried it before except for once at a rave, and it didn't seem to affect me then. I'd seen lots of engineers around the office sipping it in meetings, and given the cloudy, addled state of my mind and my general drowsiness I decided I needed the chemical boost.
Oops.
I don't take a lot of caffeine, and those two cans of Red Bull gave me heart palpitations. I nearly had a panic attack during a meeting. I'm not joking. My arms were shaking, my mind was racing, my heart was pounding, and I almost snapped my pen in two. Right now it's about 2 in the morning and my body is still at Defcon 1.
No more Red Bull, no coffee, no soda, no caffeine. As Yoda would say, "Bad things, it does." Keeps you awake, sure, but it's hard to be productive when you're vibrating like a helium molecule in heat.

Oops Part II

I just realized I haven't been archiving my old movie reviews. I overwrote most of them and they're lost forever. Humph.
Someday, when I'm not working, perhaps I can go back and recall what I thought about all of them. Pauline Kael claimed she never had to watch a movie a second time--her first impressions were chiseled into her memory. I dare not claim to be a fraction the critic nor to possess a sliver of the memory of a Pauline Kael, but my opinions of movies tend to be fairly constant after setting in.

ESPN Commercials

Some of ESPN's Sportscenter commercials are back online for a while thanks to T-Mobile. They never really get old, do they? I mean seriously, I've tested this. I've watched the same commercial over and over again for about 57 times, and I still laugh my ass off every time. Every time! When Kenny Mayne slides down on the office carpet and strikes a pose at the end of the commercial where he scores a goal on Alexei Lalas in foosball, I start convulsing and snorting things out my nose. It's got to be something hard-wired in the male brain, like a reflex.
"So Karl started drinking a little bit, and then he was going on and on about he and Mrs. Met. Nasty stuff, I tell you. Nasty stuff."

Doonesbury

Last week's Doonesbury was all about blogging. I liked this one best.

Hostage

The new BMW Film Hostage, directed by John Woo, is available for download. Clive Owen returns to play the poker-faced Driver for hire with a heart of gold and a stable of BMWs at his beck and call. As with all Woo movies, you get some closeups of bullets and guns which come through nicely if you download the 104Mb version of the short movie.
My primary complaint: men should not drive roadsters.

The Marshall Doctrine

Baseball Prospectus recently ran a fascinating two part interview (Part 1 Part 2) with pitching coach and former major league pitching star Mike Marshall. He has a website where he lays out some of his unconventional theories. Chapter 28, on pitch selection, is fascinating if you're a baseball fan. An excerpt:
1. Pitchers should throw all pitches for 66.7% strikes.
2. Pitchers should end 75% of at bats within three pitches.
3. Pitchers should end 100% of at bats within five pitches.
4. Pitchers should pitch equally well to both sides of home plates.
5. Pitchers should use the best six pitch sequences with which to achieve the lowest batting averages and on base percentages for the four types of hitters.
"To hitters who hold their bats vertically, pitchers should throw four seam fastballs. To hitters who hold their bats horizontally, pitchers should throw two seam fastballs. To hitters whose rear foot is close to home plate, pitchers should throw them fastballs away. To hitters whose rear foot is away from home plate, pitchers should throw fastballs inside. However, because all hitters want to hit fastballs, pitchers have to convince them that they do not need to throw fastballs."
I'm very curious to see how you throw what Marshall calls a pronation curve. Pronation of the arm during a throwing motion has applications in lots of sports. When a tennis coach finally taught me how to pronate on my serve, I went from having tennis elbow and a terrible serve to being able to hit the occasional ace with either pace or spin, or both.
For folks more interested in hitting (perhaps for your local softball league), Batspeed.com offers some interesting theories on hitting. Their basic premise is that most swing mechanics incorrectly cite linear mechanics when they should be preaching rotational mechanics. I'm going to try and apply some of these ideas next summer in my softball league.

Netflix

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The problem with Netflix is that all the new movies are never available. If you don't send in an old DVD the day one of the new DVDs release, the new titles will show up in your rental queue as "Long Wait" or "Very Long Wait" or "When a Cold Snap Hits Hell". I use Netflix to see movies I missed in theaters, don't think I'll want to own, but which might distract me for an a few hours if I'm home one night and looking to vegetate. But usually those are new releases which, as I noted, are pretty damn hard to get your hands on. They need to solve that issue, or customers into instant gratification will head back to their local video store, where hundreds of copies of those titles will line the shelves.
Instead of Super Troopers, Windtalkers, Changing Lanes, or We Were Soldiers, which are near the top of my Netflix queue, I get sent an older movie from way down in my queue: Go Tigers! or Blue Velvet or Malice. Netflix needs to be smart and buy up stronger on hot new releases. If they end up with too much stock on those, sell them cheap as used copies or something. Or they should develop a feature where you can send in an old movie and indicate that you don't want them to pick a movie from lower on your list until the top movie in your queue is ready to ship.
Secondly, back in the old days, if a movie came out in two DVDs, one fullscreen, one widescreen, they only offered the fullscreen edition. A big turnoff for cinephiles. I think they've gotten better about that but it was always those little details which always annoyed me. They really haven't improved their site much over time and you'd think one or two smart product managers teamed with a few engineers could keep that site innovating. Now Blockbuster, with their in-store version of the Netflix model (pay a monthly fee, keep a set number of movies out at all times), and Wal-Mart, with their Netflix clone, are moving in. They have deeper pockets and can offer more cutthroat pricing. Netflix needs to stay nimble to stay solvent.