Crumbs

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The Face Analyzer purports to determine your personal characteristics from your portrait


The description of the methodology leaves a whole lot to be desired, but it's worth a few chuckles around the water cooler on a slow day. The results seem erratic. they tagged Bill Gates as a 10.0 out of 10.0 for income but Paris Hilton at just a 3.9 for promiscuity. No, I did not upload my photo yet


An avalanche of new products from Apple announced at MacWorld

Too many cool things to list, and most of the coolest is on the software side, in my opinion. Includes HD support across the iLife and Final Cut Express apps. Multi-way video and audio iChat. Being a Mac user is a hell of a lot more fun than being a Windows user. Microsoft has a ton of great ideas and smart technologists, but their product life cycles are much too long (their margin of error is provided by their massive installed base). Meanwhile, Apple seems to issue new hardware every 4 months, productivity app upgrades every half year, and operating system upgrades every year (take the Tiger tour; how many big cats are left?)


iCal calendars to subscribe to (e.g. U.S. holidays, sports schedules, movie openings)

Now that I don't have a Windows computer anymore, I use iCal to manage my schedule and to-do list. Now that Macs are available for $499, maybe some more of you will switch over as well and find these of use


Ciphire Mail is a free e-mail encryption client

Yo, folks I e-mail regularly: let me know if you download this, too, so our trivial e-mail conversations will be secured from the eyes of the prying world


The USPS Cycling team is now Team Discovery Channel

Strange to see Lance in the new uniform. He still hasn't decided if he's going to ride the Tour de France this year. Nervous TDF bike tour operators wait in suspense.


Six Apart's comprehensive guide to stopping comment spam

Since I get hit with this crap almost daily, I plan to implement these steps in the next week or so


The website of the girl from Fox's reality TV show "Who's Your Daddy"

Included is a letter clarifying some issues surrounding the show. I never watched it, but that didn't hinder my enjoyment of the letter. Supposedly the show was originally titled Reunited, or so she was told.


Robot makers are confident they can win the World Cup by 2050


An Acehnese man swept out to sea by the tsunami survives for two weeks

He ate coconuts for 12 days, clung to a log, climbed in a damaged wooden boat, and finally cobbled together a raft from floating debris. In the wake of all the tragedy, good to read a story of survival. A real life Cast Away. He's the third Indonesian rescued from open sea since the tsunami. The others include a pregnant woman who clung to a palm tree for five days and man who spent eight days aboard an uprooted tree.


Search for illicit weapons in Iraq ends


Just for the record, they didn't have any when we sent in the troops


Malcolm Gladwell and James Surowiecki, two New Yorker giants, discuss their books Blink and The Wisdom of Crowds at Slate

I read the latter and enjoyed it, and am awaiting my Amazon shipment of the former


Stephanie Zacharek, David Edelstein, A.O. Scott, Charles Taylor, and Armond White discuss the year in movies at Slate


Bare Bones Software makes its text editor TextWrangler 2.0 free

Good for them, and good for us


Mr. Blackwell issues his annual worst dressed list


Nicollette Sheridan is the worst of the worst, joined by Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Courtney Love, Serena Williams, Britney Spears, Paula Abdul, Meryl Streep, Anna Nicole Smith, and the Simpson sisters. Best dressed include Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Barbara Walters, Kate Winslet, Annette Bening, Oprah Winfrey, Scarlett Johansson, Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Garner, and Teri Hatcher


SmartDeck, a new intelligent cassette adapter for the iPod

Allows you to use your cassette player buttons in your car to control your iPod. Simple, and brilliant


For you lazy people: gargling with Listerine is not as good as flossing

But by all means, keep gargling. Halitosis stinks


So does B.O., so wear Federline, the new scent by Britney Spears


Snowed under

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Back from an awesome holiday vacation, as usual, and this first week back is just crazy. I'm working on a film shoot, and the whole crew has been working 12 hours shifts starting early every morning in order to try and finish a 2nd year student's short film before equipment is due back to the school. Today we shot a whole series of sex scenes. Hmmm, awkward (and not just because you all now think I'm working as a grip on a porno). Tomorrow, another 12 hour day. I'm so tired I can barely sit up straight for more than five minutes at a time without nodding off like Grandpa Simpson.


I didn't jump online much over break, and I'm buried in e-mails and unpublished thoughts of the year past and the year to come, but I did notice that A&E is airing an MI-5 marathon tomorrow (Sat, Jan. 8). I highly, highly recommend the show. Just set your TiVo to record every episode being aired tomorrow (Seasons 1 and 2 and the first episode of Season 3); you won't regret it. My only regret is that I'm publishing this recommendation so late.


If for some reason you miss it, Season 1 and 2 are out on DVD Jan. 11 (Season 1 has been out for a while). I haven't much of Alias, but I'd put MI-5 up against any American suspense drama on television.


Belated happy new year everyone!


snowflakes

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Cool little adventure cam for recording sporting events from a 1st-person perspective


AllofMP3.com to double its rates Jan 15, 2005

This, coming on top of the MTA fare hike in NYC, means my cost-of-living in 2005 is already increasing, and I haven't even finished with 2004


On your honeymoon, why not treat your wife to a breast enlargement and botox at the same time?


Gamer spends $26,500 on a virtual land in computer role-playing game


"Earlier this year economists calculated that these massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have a gross economic impact equivalent to the GDP of the African nation of Namibia"


I finally watched the finale of The Apprentice stashed on my DVR. Really long, and not too suspenseful; everyone knew Kelly would win. If you're one of the final two contestants and Trump sends George along to follow you instead of Carolyn, you're screwed. The most interesting moment came when Trumps COO Matthew Calamari (like the appetizer?) stood up to advise Trump on which contestant to choose and choked up under the pressure of the moment, stuttering incoherently for a bit before Regis mercifully sat him back down. I really wanted Trump to fire Calamari on the spot, it would have been awesome, but alas, the show concluded conventionally.


Sprinkles

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Eliot Spitzer to run for governor of New York
Another article about how streets are safe the more you remove signs and lights and other traffic engineering debris. It forces drivers and pedestrians and all who use the road to make eye contact and watch out for each other. I first mentioned this topic before after reading an article in Salon on the same issue. I liked this passage from this latest article:
"To my mind, there is one crucial test of a design such as this," Monderman says. "Here, I will show you."
With that, Monderman tucks his hands behind his back and begins to walk into the square - backward - straight into traffic, without being able to see oncoming vehicles. A stream of motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians ease around him, instinctively yielding to a man with the courage of his convictions.
The article also offers six suggestions for how to build a better intersection:
1. Remove signs: The architecture of the road - not signs and signals - dictates traffic flow.
2. Install art: The height of the fountain indicates how congested the intersection is.
3. Share the spotlight: Lights illuminate not only the roadbed, but also the pedestrian areas.
4. Do it in the road: Cafés extend to the edge of the street, further emphasizing the idea of shared space.
5. See eye to eye: Right-of-way is negotiated by human interaction, rather than commonly ignored signs.
6. Eliminate curbs: Instead of a raised curb, sidewalks are denoted by texture and color.
I forwarded Derek the article since he first introduced a lot of these concepts to me. He noted that these progressive techniques would probably take years to make it to the States, if ever. No engineers and their lawyers would risk trying something like that in the U.S.; we're far too litigious a society. It's a shame.
Ricky Williams is attending college in a town called Grass Valley. I'm not making this up.
Chappelle's Show - Season 2 on DVD comes out Feb 8, 2005. Already an instant comedy classic.

And she has the same name as Trump's ex-wife, too

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I haven't kept up with The Apprentice much this year, having only seen half an episode until Thanksgiving, and I'd nearly forgotten that shows simple pleasures. You would have thought they'd have candidates of a higher caliber this year, but then over Thanksgiving we got to see the beautiful sight of Andy slipping some designers a few $100 bills as a so-called "cash incentive" a la a grateful Charlie Sheen at a strip joint. And then this past week, Ivana stripped down to her underwear for $20 to sell candy bars, and still lost to her opponents Jen and Sandy, who dressed up as "M&M girls" (Mars had to be thrilled to discover their mascot was a pair of girls dressed as cheap hookers). Jen and Sandy's reward for winning was to fly to Chicago and meet Bill Rancic, whom they had to pretend to be thrilled to meet. Bill apparently is a business mogul now--upon greeting the pair, he quickly dispensed with informalities and said, "Let's not waste any time. Should we go strategize? That's what I love to do." In his leather chair, he doled out bits of Apprentice wisdom: "You have to make your own case in the boardroom." "Work hard, do whatever it takes." Actually I'm making all of this up, I can't remember anything he said it was so vapid.
Carolyn is still awesome ("This person is going to run one of your companies. Would you hire a stripper?" she hissed in the boardroom), but one day I'd love for her to just turn to Trump and just chew him out in the boardroom for even considering hiring any of these young fools to run any of his companies. I don't know much about the remaining candidates, but I don't really care for any of them, which I suppose is okay. The stars are Trump and Carolyn, and to a lesser extent senile George, who's quite possibly senile, and however solid the candidates, the editors of the show will frame them at their worst. Reality television producers are like funhouse mirrors--you could be Mother Teresa and they'd find footage of you badmouthing a leper.
Now that I live in NYC, I see Apprentice contestants everywhere. A few weeks back Kate was up visiting and we saw some short girl in the midst of a glamor photo shoot in Central Park. Kate and her old NYC roommate recognized her as this year's Stacy. Nick from season one was one of the first people I saw when I was apartment-hunting. Raj is apparently dating Jen C., who lives in Rahul's building. I guess things never worked out between Raj and Robin, the boardroom receptionist.
Who has set women back more, the formerly successful business women who dress up like sluts to prove their business skills on The Apprentice, or the ladies on Desperate Housewives? I finally caught an episode of the latter, Tivo'd from this past Sunday, to see what the hubbub was all about. Not only was the episode boring, but I didn't find a sympathetic character in the entire show. This is what housewives are like? What community do they live in?
I'd heard about the one who's sleeping with her teenage gardener (Eva Longoria). In the episode preview, apparently she and the gardener were caught planting produce together by her mother-in-law, who then ran into the street and got run over by a car. This episode she tried to feign sympathy while her mother-in-law lay in a coma (I've never met anyone in real life who was in a coma, but TV and movies give me the impression that they occur with great regularity), and she had a fit when she heard her lover confessed to a priest, who she subsequently spoke with to confirm the solidity of vows of secrecy.
The boy who ran over the old lady? Her mother helped him cover up the crime by leaving the car in question unlocked in a seedy neighborhood until someone jacked it (an idiotic plan with more holes than the plot cares to resolve), only to discover that her son was an unrepentant devil.
Another mother (Felicity Huffman of the more flattering Sports Night) couldn't stand trying to raise her four young kids and became addicted to their ADD medicine. At episode's end she just left them and drove off.
I'm guessing Teri Hatcher is a divorced housewife raising her daughter alone. She's trying to seduce some guy in her neighborhood. She convinces him to take her to a hotel overnight, a plan she discusses with her daughter; open communications with your kids are the key to a healthy mother-daughter relationship (her daughter even helps her pick out a seductive outfit, telling her, "It's been years since someone's seen you naked, mom." Wow, do families really speak like this in the burbs today? That's more shocking to me than the Monday Night Football skit). She discovers that this guy has wads of cash and a gun in his kitchen cabinets, so she sneaks into his house to check it out, whereupon she falls through his bathroom floor a la Tom Hanks in The Money Pit. The guy won't tell her what the money and gun are for, and they seem ready to break off their courtship, until he comes by and offers to answer any questions she might have. Apparently that's enough for her as she then jumps into his arms and they make love against the wall, as people do in the movies.
There are two other women, one played by Nicollette Sheridan, another by an older lady, who are or were living together. They steal things from each other. The older lady gets killed at the end for having blackmailed another woman in her neighborhood.
It's possible, but extremely difficult, to maintain interest in a fictional television show where none of the characters are likable. Reality television is different; there's some wonderful schadenfreude to be had from seeing our fellow man degrade themselves in the pursuit of success. I guess the most sympathetic character I saw on the show was the gardener. After all, Eva Longoria is pretty hot. Besides that, the rest of the characters present unflattering portraits of suburban housewives, and that's a shame, because I've met plenty this past year while traveling from one friend's sofa to another as a houseguest, and all of them were good people.
And I was disappointed that Terrell Owens didn't appear. Didn't I hear he was on this show? If he comes back, maybe I'd watch.

Tough beats

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I like Annie Duke. Not only does she have a great poker name, she doesn't sit at the poker table with a poker face all the time. It's the same reason I enjoy watching Phil Hellmuth, even though he's a cocky SOB. His running monologues at the table are awesome. Watching Annie take down Phil in the 2004 Tournament of Champions (ESPN2 will be replaying it for months, I'm sure) was good theater, and I really wish I could get a tape of Phil's tirade when Tobey Maguire drew a four of a kind to beat Phil's full house. When she showed him the 9 but not the K after he showed her his K (the flop had K and 9 among them), his reaction was awesome. "You played a pair of 9s? That's so reckless."
Notified in advance by Jason Kottke, I set my Tivo to tape Ken Jennings' defeat on Jeopardy today. He lost to a woman named Nancy, who I liked because she had just returned from China where she'd adopted a little Chinese girl. Jennings would have won if he had nailed both his Double Jeopardy questions in round two, but he missed both of them, and that cost him about $10,000. He went into Final Jeopardy with $14,400 to Nancy's $10,000 (the third contestant, some college student, ended up in the red and didn't even make it to the final round). The Final Jeopardy answer was: "Most of this company's 70,000 seasonal white collar employees only work 4 months a year." I personally didn't know, and neither did Ken, but Nancy knew it was "H&R Block" and placed a bet of $4,401, which, if Ken had bet nothing, would have given her a $1 victory. When his answer came out wrong ("Fed Ex") Nancy gasped and put her hands to her mouth, the crowd gasped, and then they stood to give Ken a standing ovation.
Sundance announces its 2005 lineup of movies
Giddyup! Jason and I had so much fun there last year that we've planned a return trip.

I dabbled with Google Scholar

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I dabbled with Google Scholar this morning and snagged a few interesting PDFs, though I couldn't find any more Steven Levitt papers than I have by just using Google itself. In this area, the selection isn't overwhelming yet, but it's useful for those times when you want to get academic.
Speaking of Steven Levitt, he has a new book being published in the spring: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. I suspect his publisher added "rogue economist" to the title.
Running long distances set humans apart from primates
And there was the gluteus maximus, the muscle of the buttocks. Earlier human ancestors, like chimpanzees today, had pelvises that could support only a modest gluteus maximus, nothing like the strong buttocks of Homo.
"Have you ever looked at an ape?" Dr. Bramble said. "They have no buns."
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the marathon makes the man.
ABC aired Saving Private Ryan on Veteran's Day in 2001 and 2002 with no incident. In 2004, though, over 60 ABC affiliates chickened out and aired programs like Hoosiers instead. Why? Fear of the F.C.C. Of course, it will surprise no one that I find this ridiculous, but I'm also shocked that people still watch movies on CBS, NBC, or ABC. I haven't done that since...I can't even remember anymore.

Karen and I tried Skype

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Karen and I tried Skype last night, both of us on Mac OS X, and it worked fine after I finally got my iSight to work as a microphone (I think you have to quit iChat AV to resolve an input conflict, though who knows for sure?). The sound quality on Skype is noticeably better than iChat's; perhaps it's the audio compression codec they use.
I've also caught up to the entire season of Lost using BitTorrent. Count me engrossed thus far.
Other things worth watching online: Eminem's video for his anti-Bush song "Mosh." I wonder which will be a greater aid to Kerry's election hopes next Tuesday: the angry rap polemic of Eminem or the the smooth drawl of the real, slimmer Shady himself, Bill Clinton, back on the campaign trail. Maybe the former, since Clinton and The New Yorker, who issued a long endorsement of Kerry in this week's issue, may be preaching to the converted, eloquent as they are. So far, MTV has not said if they'll air Eminem's video.
Finally, finally, MI-5 Vol. 2 will come out on DVD, but not until January 2005. Loved Vol. 1 (the show is called Spooks in the UK), and was never sure why season two wasn't out on DVD yet. Too bad I can't locate season two on BitTorrent anywhere.

Remains of a weekend

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I haven't set up my television here in NYC, and before that I was traveling for months so I had just sporadic access to a television. I haven't missed it nearly as much as I thought. It's given me time to read and enjoy life outside my apartment. I'm sick of reality television, have no need for CSI: Minneapolis ("Hmm, I think Steve Buscemi died when his partner axed him in the head and put him through the wood chipper. Yaaaa, I do."), and any television show I really want to watch can usually found on BitTorrent. For example, the clip of Jon Stewart on Crossfire as he bitch-slapped Tucker Carlson. Deeply, deeply satisfying. I can't stand Tucker Carlson. What a buffoon. If you don't know how to use BitTorrent, you can see the clip just fine here at iFilm. Could Jon Stewart be any more golden right now? I walked by the Union Square Barnes and Noble when he was there for his book signing, and by the looks of the drooling women in line, you'd think Jude Law or Brad Pitt was there to sign a swimsuit calendar.
Of course, I must have my television set up by this Thursday, when The Office Christmas Specials (part 1, part 2) air in the U.S. on BBC America. I tried to find it on DVD in London this summer, but all I could turn up was pity from Londoners who tsk tsk'd as they revelled in recounting the rapture of humor the special had bestowed upon them. The DVDs? Release in the UK Oct. 25. If you haven't seen the show yet, I either pity or envy you. And who the hell are you and where have you been living?! The show has no laugh track, because you'll provide one. But don't take my word for it. The New Yorker calls it perfect.
Malcolm Gladwell writes about the high cost of prescription drugs with his usual (i.e., unusual) insight.
Wal-Mart.com, of all sites, has audio clips of the Friday Night Lights soundtrack. I'm just about over my Friday Night Lights kick. After watching the movie I bought the soundtrack and inhaled the book (recommended and recommended, respectively). The music has been a nice change of pace from the usual stuff in my "Running" playlist in my iPod, all of which I've heard about eighty times by now.
The baseball stadium in Houston is a joke. People are hitting pop flies out of the stadium in left field for home runs, and that hill with the pole in it in center field is ludicrous. What an atrocious baseball playing field (I've never seen the exterior, but it seems fine). The fact that all baseball stadiums have different dimensions in the outfield used to never bother me, but if they standardize the dimensions of all playing areas of all MLB stadiums, allowing architects to customize all other aspects and dimensions of the stadium, I'd have no objections. Imagine one NBA basketball court having baskets nine feet high instead of ten, or a three point line that was shorter than in other stadiums.
Games 3 and 4 of the ALCS were brutal. Each game lasted about two days. Alan, Sharon, and I rented a movie, started watching when game 3 started, and when the two hour movie finished that game was in the fourth inning. I don't know how anyone who's not a Yankees or Red Sox fan could stay awake. I remain steadfast in my hope that MLB will speed up the games. If you adjust your batting glove and then stand there to take a pitch, why do you need to step out and adjust it again? Is the velcro defective?
I met James, Angela, some of their college friends, Alan, and Sharon for lunch at Carnegie Deli today. The Carnegie sandwiches are MASSIVE. RIDICULOUS. I had a reuben, their specialty, and it was actually just a mountain of pastrami covered by several layers of cheese. It looked like an elementary school model of Mt. St. Helens erupting cheese. I finished about a quarter of it and will nibble on the remains for the rest of the week. Carnegie Deli is a mecca for pastrami and corned beef lovers.
I didn't miss my car until I saw this promotional clip for the new BMW M5. Sweet mother of...sometimes, late at night, when the subway seems like it will never arrive, wouldn't you just like to hop into something like this and just play Pole Position with the cabs.
NYC's arts lineup is overwhelming. Everyday I find at least five things I'm dying to go see. Monday night (oh, that would be tonight) Ricky Gervais is speaking at the Museum of Television and Radio before a screening of The Office Christmas Special. I'd kill to see Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) at the Met. Alex Ross raves about it. What stops me is the memory of my first NYC credit card bill. Upon opening it and reading the balance, I screamed, dropped the bill, my eyes rolled up into my head, and I fainted theatrically, like a swooning movie diva.
The weekend ended with puppet entertainment. No, not the marionettes of Team America World Police, but the puppets of Avenue Q, the much acclaimed musical that won the Tony for best musical in 2003. I am not a huge musical fan, but I enjoyed this one for not taking itself so seriously. It offers quite a contrast to the melodrama of most musicals and seems a descendant of the Rent lineage of musicals, one that's sadly sparse. The show features a cast of puppets and people who live in a rundown neighborhood in Manhattan as they sing about life and its problems. But these are HBO-class puppets, not Sesame Street or Jim Henson muppets (even though some of the characters really resemble Ernie and the cookie monster), so they swear, drink, and have sex. As Phil said at intermission, it might not a musical you'd be comfortable seeing with your parents. The puppets are held by actors who stand alongside them as puppeteers, singing, with their hands clearly inserted up into the puppets or waving their arms around. It's jarring for just the first few seconds, but then, the rest of the time, as the cast sings songs like "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" or "The Internet is for Porn" or "Schadenfreude", you realize it all feels on some level like a clever deconstruction of the musical as an art form. Would Kermit and Miss Piggy have grown up to be a dysfunctional married couple? Would Bert have come out of the closet to confess his love for Ernie? Would Big Bird be surfing porn on the Internet? I'm of the generation that wouldn't find those stories surprising at all, and I'm glad some musicals have caught up.

Entourage

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James and Angela subscribe to HBO On Demand, and that enabled me to catch up on all the episodes of HBO's new series Entourage. The show follows Vince, a hot B level movie star trying to attain A-list status, and his posse of childhood friends who live off Vince's wealth and fame, hanging onto his coattails. Together they try to navigate the temptations and pitfalls of the L.A. fast life.
After five episodes, I'm a convert. The writing hasn't been at the level of, say, The Sopranos, but the show benefits from being vaguely inspired by the life story of Mark Wahlberg. While watching, you're always left wondering who or what is being lampooned. Clearly Johnny "Drama" Chase is supposed to be Donnie Wahlberg, and the fact that he's played by a real-life lesser-known brother of a famous actor (Kevin Dillon, brother of Matt) adds a second layer of humor. His mustache, straight Matt Dillon from There's Something About Mary, is, as they'd say on the show, tight. Pop star and purported virgin Justine Chapin--she's probably spoofing Britney, but perhaps Jessica Simpson as well? Is this taken from the Britney-Colin Farrell tryst, or did Mark Wahlberg bag some other teen pop star?
The frequent guest appearances by real-life movie stars playing themselves (Jessica Alba, Mark Wahlberg, Sara Foster, Luke Wilson, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel) further smudge the lines between truth and reality. No effort is made to disguise locations--in fact, the episode guides online list the settings for notable scenes.
Some of the episodes have been flat, but the hip hop soundtrack is always bumping, and Jeremy Piven has officially and effectively taken over the role of resident obnoxious character from Jay Mohr. Many shows really hit their stride in season 2, and this is a promising start. HBO needed a comedy in addition to Curb Your Enthusiasm and Da Ali G Show to balance the melodrama of Six Feet Under, Deadwood, The Sopranos, and Oz, and now they have it.
Footnote: HBO's Entourage currently ranks third in a Google search for "Entourage" behind two sites about Microsoft Entourage, the e-mail client. My money's on the horse from HBO. Also, how long will it be before someone releases a "What character from Entourage are you" web quiz?

Gold rush

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Even though NBC's coverage can be exasperating and even though everyone knows the key results before they air tape-delayed, I am, as usual, addicted to the Olympics on television. Every night, after an exhausting day of viewing appalling apartments costing more than I'd pay to rent a four to five bedroom house in Seattle, I've been watching the Olympics until NBC's prime-time coverage ends, almost as a form of visual comfort food (NYC is on the East Coast but operates on a West Coast time schedule, so I don't have any body clock adjustments to make; people go to work at 9am or later, eat dinner at around 9pm, go to bed around midnight or later). Perhaps I also feel the need to watch so as to lend some dignity to what must be the least-attended Summer Olympics ever. I haven't seen so few fans in the stands since the last national broadcast of a Montreal Expos game (which also took place the last time the Olympics were held in Greece).
I love volleyball (indoor sixes), swimming, and gymnastics. Volleyball because I learned to love the sport when I was in school, swimming because the sport drags out the suspense of close finishes just long enough to leave you out of breath, and gymnastics because there's always one competitor on each event that is freakishly superior to everyone else, all of whom are physical freaks in their own way. In men's gymnastics, some of the haircuts are atrocious, adding to the carnival freak factor. It's as if the guys all think to themselves, "Well, they're going to put us in these ridiculous outfits, what's the use of getting a stylish do?"
The women gymnasts, by virtue of their immense musculature, Spartan diets, and harsh training regimens, are nearly all midgets. NBC always plays short musical interludes introducing each team (where are the voiceovers by Dick Enberg this year?). Of course, for all the Eastern European and Asian teams, the soundtrack is stentorian, martial, and the images always depict abandoned training facilities that resemble prison gyms. As if the American gymnasts suffer any less horrific an upbringing.
These teenage girls, none of whom ever appear happy, then have one opportunity to capitalize on an entire lost childhood, after which they may finally grow beyond 5' 2" and 80 pounds, rendering them useless in the sport. In no other sport is the anticipation and dread of failure on the part of the audience so awesome, with the exception of perhaps figure skating, where once a skater loses his/her nerve, almost every routine seems to contain some mishandled jump. The frequency of errors in other sports may be just as high, if not higher, but the stakes for the competitors in gymnastics and figure skating are usually fatal, and the physical awkwardness of a gymnast falling off the high bar or missing a landing, or a figure skater tumbling onto his/her butt on the ice is difficult to exceed. Rick Ankiel unable throwing every ball to the backstop was unbearable to watch, but he's the exception in the baseball.
[Random note: in this year's Olympics, they're using a new unisex vault called Pegasus in gymnastics. Supposedly it's been tested for years and provides superior safety. I'm not sure why I'm noting this other than the fact that it was noticeable enough that everytime it appeared on television, someone would ask, "What's up with the vault?"]
True, the Olympics seem to include more and more obscure sports each time. The same people who complain about, say, synchronized diving are the same people who will tune in and watch an entire season of Fear Factor or The Apprentice or Survivor or The Bachelor or Average Joe or Celebrity Poker Showdown. I can picture myself competing and doing well in many reality television shows (except American Idol and that model show hosted by Tyra Banks).
Not so with even the most obscure of Olympic sports. In fact, I'm puzzled by why and how anyone picks up sports like the discus. How many people in the world throw the discus? Who would have started them on such a sport? How does one spot discus-throwing potential? The start-up costs seem too high. I picture young children spinning out of control and throwing discii wildly, through car and home windows, or worse, beheading innocent bystanders. Ditto with the hammer throw (is that still an Olympic event?). The mastery of such obscure and specialized arts provokes an odd fascination.
The thought of another day of apartment hunting is unbearable. Perhaps I'll mix things up and respond to a different sort of Craigslist ad. True, I lack nearly all of the qualifications. But isn't that what special effects houses are for--look at what they did to Andy Serkis in The Lord of the Rings. And surely the suspension of disbelief is already stretched to the limit. This is a movie that asks us to believe that through the use of a pair of glasses, Superman is unrecognizable as Clark Kent. I've seen better disguises from four year olds at Halloween.
Me as the next Superman or me as an Olympic gold medalist in the Trampoline (yes, it's an Olympic sport). Either way, it's a long journey.

The Simpsons - Season Four on DVD

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I finally received my copy of season four of The Simpsons on DVD, and I've been playing it in a spare window on the computer all night.
Brilliance, just sheer brilliance. The show is still decent, but season four is the show at the peak of its powers. Phil Hartman was still alive, and the sheer density of clever pop culture references is staggering. If you wanted to own only one season of the Simpsons on DVD (poor you), then this is your box set.
Now that Seattle is working on finishing its monorail, the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail" is satire that strikes particularly close to home. I'm crying. The British may be the masters of comedy, but The Simpsons may just be the epitome of American humor, a balance of optimism and indiscriminate skewering chock full of references that draw from culture both high and pop (America has no highbrow or lowbrow culture, just a democratic soup).
Speaking of The Simpsons, is there any badge of cultural distinction greater than appearing as a guest star in an episode?

Ah, nostalgia

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Fond memories from post-grade school afternoons and Saturday mornings spent watching television: Spider-Man: The 1967 Collection (with its classic theme song, yes, that one) and Wonder Woman - Season One (before Carrie Fisher in her Return of the Jedi slave girl outfit, and long before Buffy in short skirts, we had Lynda Carter in the Wonder Woman outfit, and it was good). We are entering the Golden Age of television on DVD.

Friends finale

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I haven't watched Friends in years, so I wasn't sure if I'd emotionally connect with the finale. Gavin and Sheila hosted a finale party, though, and even though I don't have an office job anymore I still feel the need to be armed for water cooler conversation.
Turns out I hadn't missed much. The characters are still exactly the same, ten years later. Oh sure, some have gotten married, some have kids, etc., but the only thing preventing the show from running along forever were the movie ambitions of a few of the actors and the unpleasant effects of aging.
The first two years of Friends came out just as I was finishing college and entering the real world and thus it appealed to me in a firsthand way (even though I had a job that should have paid me more than all of them yet they lived in a palatial apartment in New York). After those years, it was never must-see TV for me. Its humor never cut too deep, and thus I can barely remember any memorable episodes. Compare that to Seinfeld or The Simpsons, from which I could cite a dozen references or episodes off the top of my head.
Still, Friends was like comfort food. On an open Thursday night, it was pleasant to the taste and familiar and reassuring in the fairy-tale manner of all great sitcoms. Fortunately, for fans, in a year or two all the seasons will have come out on DVD (not to mention syndication) where the six of them will live on forever. It will be as if the show was never canceled.
Now if I can just figure out how to get into their rent control program in Manhattan...


What exactly is a Boardroom experience?

in

Bid on a Boardroom Experience with George and Carolyn.
Sounds kinda kinky. Can Melania come? She has such Boardroom eyes.
Meanwhile, can we have a reality TV show in which Donald Trump and Mark Cuban compete to see who makes the bigger fool of themselves?
Cuban in his post to Trump (I'm sure Trump has Cuban's blog bookmarked): "After leaving your office, I promised myself that if I ever got liquid and had an obscene amount of money in the bank, I would make a point not to remind myself and everyone else around me of it every minute of every day