More commercials

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New theatrical trailer for The Matrix Revolutions. Supposedly, the new trailer for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is playing before some New Line movies like Secondhand Lions. So ladies, if your date looks at his watch and then mysteriously disappears partway through some chick flick for about three minutes...
Why are they called trailers when they're shown before the movie? In olden times, these commercials for coming attractions were shown after the feature film. Movie execs finally wisened up and realized it would be a lot smarter to play these ads before everyone had cleared out of the theater, when they had a captive audience.

Looks can be deceiving

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Identity theft has gotten a lot of play in the press recently. I hadn't paid too much attention as I consider myself fairly web savvy and guarded. Still, an attempted identity theft e-mail which landed in my inbox yesterday really opened my eyes as to how crafty the enemy can be.
The e-mail came from service@paypal.com and looked like a PayPal e-mail in its graphics. Its body contained the following text:
Please verify your information today!
Dear Paypal Member.
Your account has been randomly flagged in our system as a part of our routine security measures. This is a must to ensure that only you have access and use of your paypal account and to ensure a safe Paypal experience.
We require all flagged accounts to verify their information on file with us.
To verify your information, click here and enter the details requested.
After you verify your information, your account shall be returned to good standing and you will continue to have full use of your account.
Thank you for using PayPal!
Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
A couple things looked suspicious right from the start. The line formatting, as shown above, was strange looking. Some of the wording looked strange for a professional correspondence..."This is a must to..." And the fact that I couldn't reply to the e-mail, given the gravity of its message, was also odd. But all in all, I could completely understand if a trusting novice web surfer might find this believable.
The link in the e-mail sent me to this website. The URL in the browser address bar immediately looked fishy. Instead of starting with http://www.paypal.com/, it had some random DNS address. And the page was not secure and didn't require any authentication before requesting all this extremely private info. Yeah, riiiiiight.
However, the page itself was well designed to mimic the PayPal.com look and feel though, complete with the same navigation and links to actual PayPal.com addresses. It even had the "Processing Login" animation that ran for about five seconds, though the ellipsis was cycling a bit too quickly. But all in all, a well-designed trap for the naive and unaware.
Of course, I didn't provide any info, and I logged in to PayPal.com directly and noted that nothing seemed amiss with my actual account. I then reported the site to PayPal which responded that this was indeed a fraudulent site.
PayPal users beware.

Silver, but feels like lead

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My copy of Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1) arrived on my doorstep along with The Fortress of Solitude and The Namesake.
The combined weight of this fall reading weighed about 82 pounds, mainly because Neal Stephenson's latest numbers 944 pages. Hurrican Isabel could have come through Seattle and carried the house into the Puget Sound and that package would still be sitting on the doorstep.
Ooh, goody goody.

Waking up in cold sweat

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I had a vivid dream last night that I was getting married. It was the day of my wedding, all family and friends were sitting in the church, I was backstage in my tux running around, shaking with anxiety. Why? Because I had no idea who I was marrying. It was like one of those dreams in which you're going into a final exam without having attended a single class all quarter, except this time I was about to head on stage and await some unknown bride to come bursting through the rear auditorium doors and come strolling up the aisle.
The most tempting analysis and interpretation is also the most obvious and literal, and it's one I'm going to resist.

Sofia Coppola loves Will Ferrell, too

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From a USA Today article:
And she continues to indulge her weakness for Saturday Night Live alumni by amusing herself on the plane with a DVD, The Best of Will Ferrell. "Real highbrow, huh? He is so funny. My favorite skit is the Actors Studio guy. I liked Old School, too."
Okay, could her star possibly be any brighter right now?
My Lost in Translation infatuation is in its second week. I took my sisters and Keila to see it this weekend, my second time.

Why do birds...suddenly appear?

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One of the depressing things about the shift of studios to grab as much revenue as possible for their big movie vehicles on opening weekend is that smaller movies get very narrow windows in which to reach their audience. And so it was that I had to dash off to the Varsity to catch So Close before its one week run came to an end. Ever since China took over Hong Kong, many of HK's top directors and actors have fled to Hollywood, and the talent and funding drain temporarily sapped the HK film scene of its vitality. So I was both hopeful and skeptical as the opening scene unfolded...
...bingo! This is the type of fun, entertaining action flick that HK used to crank out with unmatched regularity. Forget Charlie's Angels and all those American knockoffs. HK has been producing female action heroes since the days when Cameron Diaz was in a training bra. The gorgeous Shu Qi emerges from an elevator in a glorious white pantsuit, wearing designer shades and stilettos with retractable spikes that allow her to hang from ceilings while blowing bodyguards away. Dazzling.
All the men in this movie, and even the plot itself, is a sideshow. It's all about Karen Mok, Shu Qi, and Zhao Wei, kicking serious butt. And because the action is top notch, the slapstick humor is charming instead of annoying. It's a delicate balance, and So Close achieves it.
The movie is never so good as in the beginning, when for no reason at all, Shu Qi's handler decides to play the Carpenter's "(They Long to Be) Close to You" while Shu Qi is fighting her way out of a heavily guarded building, shooting several dozen bodyguards in the knees on her way out, smiling mischievously the whole time. Call her the anti-Trinity.
Just like me, they long to be, close to youuuuuuu....
Of course, if you're in Seattle, you have just one day left to catch it, while crap like Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star lingers for weeks, taking up screen space and stinking like so much rotting garbage.

More than this

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Lost in Translation is still stuck in my mind. In particular, the karaoke scene. It has a spot in the pantheon of most romantically supercharged movie date scenes, alongside Uma Thurman and John Travolta's date in Pulp Fiction, and Clooney and J.Lo in Out of Sight.
Who would've thought Bill Murray singing More Than This by Bryan Ferry could be so romantic? Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson and Sofia Coppola all deserve Oscar noms.

Galileo

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On Sunday the 21st, the satellite Galileo, first launched into space in 1989 on the shuttle Atlantis, will float into Jupiter's atmostphere and disintegrate in the heat. The NASA events surrounding Galileo's final day will be webcast live.
It seems like the space program can do no right these days, but the story surrounding Galileo is an amazing one and reflects the heroic resourcefulness of teams of smart people trying to overcome one crisis after another. The first problem was how to get the satellite to Jupiter. The use of certain types of propellent on the satellite was rejected because of the risk of carrying that propellent up in the shuttle.
A scientist devised an ingenius method for overcoming this problem. Instead of launching the satellite towards Jupiter, he proposed launching it in the other direction, towards Venus, where it would use the gravitational pull of Venus as a slingshot. Another scientist built on this idea and proposed that Galileo then hurtle back towards Earth where it would circle Earth twice, using Earth's gravitational pull as a slingshot as well, multiplying its speed enough to whip around and shoot across the gap to Jupiter. Ingenious.
But then, soon after Galileo was launched, another problem arose. The high gain antenna on Galileo was stuck for some reason and would not open. The low gain antenna could not send information quickly enough, putting the entire value of the project at risk. Just as in Apollo 13, teams were formed to work around the problems. One worked to try and free the high gain antenna, and another team to see if the software on Galileo could be rewritten to improve the throughput of data from the remaining systems on board.
The high gain antenna was never fixed, but the other team managed to beam up completely new software, taking advantage of additional memory modules and advances in software design. In addition, a tape recorder that had been installed on board for backup was repurposed as a cache to store data being collected by the satellite but that couldn't be beamed back through the low gain antenna quickly enough to free up memory. This cache would store this data for beaming back during downtime between Galileo's intense data collection assignments. This all had to happen as the satellite was in space, on its way through space. Amazing!
The rest is history. Galileo became the first satellite to discover that asteroids can have their own moons (the asteroid was Gaspra, its moon Dactyl). It witnessed the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter, generating explosions more powerful than the largest hydrogen bomb. Ironically, because of Moore's Law, Galileo has had to do all of this with computing power dwarfed by that of your average child's video game console today.
It's a reminder of the promise of the space program. There are a few events which, if witnessed during my lifetime, would fundamentally alter my entire world view (no, I'm not referring to a Cubs victory in the World Series, though the Astros can start losing anyday now, okay?). For example, a catastrophic nuclear war. Another country dethroning U.S. as the pre-eminent superpower (China?). And the discovery and contact of extra terrestrial intelligence or beings. Someday, and perhaps unexpectedly, we may confirm we are not alone in this universe, and perhaps that will unite us all as human beings.

White hot pain, white hot rock

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I've had lots of trouble with my sinuses this year, and these past two weeks it's affected my sleeping. I haven't been sleeping deeply, or well, and during the day I wander about in a constant drowsy stupor. The roof of my mouth aches, my upper teeth ache, and sometimes I have trouble just enunciating.
My regular doc was out of ideas, so he referred me to an ENT, and today I visited said ENT. It began innocently enough. Fill out some forms, nurse escort to sitting room with subscriptions to the usual lousy magazines, doc comes in and makes some small talk while looking in my ear and throat.
And then things took a turn for the...not so good. Doc sticks something long and metallic in my nose to look at my sinuses. Not so comfy. Doc asks me some questions, and decides I need a CAT scan.
I lie on my stomach on a long platform, facing forward as if flying like Superman, and then the platform rises and slowly extends my head into the hole in the center of a giant donut-shaped apparatus. Presumably this is the CAT scan machine. It slowly extends my head into the machine, one centimeter at a time, taking scans of cross-sections of my head. This happens some 27 times, lasting about five minutes, until my neck is aching from craning my head back this whole time.
Back to see the doc and wait for the scans to be developed. When they return, he hangs them up on a light box mounted on the wall, just like in the movies, and we both stare at them. He looks with a diagnostic eye, and I with simple curiosity and, admittedly, a bit of trepidation.
"These sinuses here look normal," he says, pointing at two large dark spots. "As do these." He explains the white and dark spots, what I'm looking at.
"But this," he says with a frown, pointing at a white area on the scan, "looks like a problem."
Oh crap!
"It might be a cyst, but whatever it is, it's swelling and causing pressure which may explain the discomfort in the roof of your mouth. Let's take a look at the roof of your mouth." He puts one of those long circular mirrors on the end of a metal stick, like the ones dentists use, in my mouth.
"Hmmm, yeah, this looks tender. I think what we should do is stick a needle through the roof of your mouth and drain it, send it away for tests."
What?!? An innocent visit to the doc had taken a turn for the horrific, the likes of which hadn't been seen since Janet Leigh got offed in the shower in Psycho. I was too shocked to say anything, and suddenly the doctor had strapped on some gloves and was holding a humongous syringe, 200cc's, the type you stick in a horse, and he was asking me to open my mouth wide.
And then I felt this white hot pain in the roof of my mouth, and then a sudden explosion of pain in my sinuses, like they were being ripped out my nose by a vacuum. My upper teeth felt like they were being forced out of their sockets by some force from within. I nearly choked.
The doc removed the needle. It was half full of a reddish fluid, like blood, but darker. He asked me to open up again and did this again, filling the needle. My eyes were watering from the pain in my sinuses.
And just like that, the doc told me to make an appointment to see him again in 10 days and sent me on my way. My sinuses felt terrible, my mouth tasted of blood, and my nose started running, but despite this I managed to mumble directions to the receptionist to set up a followup. After the joy of this visit, I can hardly wait. Let's hope it isn't a tumor, though the doc suggested it was more likely a cyst. I didn't even know what a cyst was, except that I'd read about cysts the size of watermelons which had been removed from patients in the past. It was all too terrifying, and the rest of the afternoon was a painful blur.
Fortunately, in the evening, I had the White Stripes concert to distract me. Pete, Maren, Molly, and I thought we were going to be early, but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs started exactly on time and were blasting Y Control when we walked in. Karen O is one crazy chick. She sang half the songs with the microphone actually inside her mouth. Their set was short, just over half an hour of crazy punk, and then we had to stand and watch Little Audrey and Betty Boop cartoons while the roadies set up for the Stripes.
A lot of the crowd members were too damn tall. I could barely see the stage. Some girl passed out and security guards carried her out. Just when the crowd was going to lose it, Jack and Meg strolled out on stage. Meg was in a white short-sleeve shirt and white pants, and Jack was wearing a red t-shirt and pants that were split straight down the middle: the left half of the pants were red, the right half black.
They sure love Meg. Who's more beloved--Meg Whitman or Meg White? Pick'em. I would have never predicted that Elephant would sell a gazillion copies, not because it isn't good, but because it seems a little too out there to appeal to the mainstream. What do I know? Jack looked like Gr

Lost in Translation

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Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation was wonderful. Ditto Bill Murray. Ditto Scarlett Johansson. Ditto the soundtrack. It's my favorite movie of the year thus far.
Brought back memories for me of the time I was sent to Hong Kong for a week by a consulting firm to meet with people in their branch office. They wanted me to consider transferring there to help start an industry practice. The firm put me up for the week in a posh hotel with a window view from up on high of the harbor. I didn't know anyone and spent the week wandering around the city streets, feeling like an alien. Many things do, as they say, get lost in the translation, and many of the events in the movie reminded me of incidents from that visit.
I couldn't shake that feeling of loneliness and alienation I felt during my stay, and a week or so after I returned to the States I turned down the offer.
Other things in the movie that rung true. How sometimes, it's easier to talk about your problems with complete strangers than it is with friends and family. How you meet someone in a foreign country, and shortly thereafter you're spilling your guts to each other, and how that's all facilitated by sexual tension. And that moment when you have to say goodbye, how it comes too soon, and how awkward that can be because the moment is overloaded.
Go see it!

Take some time off

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From Motley Fool: While Europeans take about six weeks of vacation each year, we Americans average only 10.2 vacation days per annum, with only 4.3 nights spent away from home. Of course, on the whole, we get paid more than our European counterparts, and we own more stuff. We likely have more squirreled away in our retirement accounts, too. But if you drive yourself into an early grave, what good are the millions?

The Death Star

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Karen was just telling me that she took over this room from a guy named Chad who left for MIT to work on his Master's degree, and that he's an inventor who created some cool holographic technology. And then, I kid you not, we fire up the computer to look up Joannie's flight, and I come across this post in Metafilter while goofing around.
It's that technology from Star Wars, used by the rebels to project stolen plans to the Death Star, lighting the inevitable path to the unprotected, vulnerable core, which, once destroyed, leads to a cataclysmic chain of events in which the entire structure erupts in a massive explosion (a Star Wars trope, so to speak, featured in Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, and The Phantom Menace).
What a co-inky-dink!

Visiting family in the O.C.

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Okay, not quite. Hermosa Beach, at Karen's new apartment, for the weekend. Joannie gets in tomorrow morning from New Zealand, so it'll be a Wei family reunion in L.A.
I didn't watch much TV on the 11th, but flying always reminds me of 9-11. The loss of a more carefree way of life always strikes me when getting off of airplanes. In the past, a whole crowd of people would be waiting just beyond the door as you walked off the gangway, all smiling strangers looking past you, expectantly, and then the one familiar face looking at you. After sitting on an airplane for hours with strangers like an orphan, that moment when you see your friend or family member is the transition from being lost to being found, claimed and pulled back into the world.
Now, no one is allowed to the gate without a boarding pass, cars are shooed away by police, so such reunions happen by baggage claims or on curbs. I have to remove my shoes and walk through metal detectors in my socks. Sometimes I have to take off my belt as I'm wanded front and back, up and down. It's not that the inconvenience bothers me. Most of the security personnel at Seatac are almost sheepish, embarrassed that they have to subject us to these stringent procedures and thus surpassingly polite. Rather it's the reminder of the event that shifted us all into this mode of heightened suspicion that always depresses me.
After reading this article about a photo of one of the people who jumped out of the burning Towers, I couldn't stop imagining myself having to jump out of a burning building, the flames and smoke and scorching air behind me, and a fall of several hundred feet before me, the sidewalk far below. The article notes that jumpers fell through the air about 10 seconds, and I can't help thinking that when I did my Nevis bungy jump in New Zealand, I free fell about 9 seconds.
Of course, the bungy jump was 9 seconds of exhilaration. Now, thinking about those who leapt from the Towers, I feel guilty for having enjoyed myself then.
The Falling Man has become the iconic image of the horror of 9-11, just like the photo of the young girl burned by napalm in Vietnam became the visual embodiment of all that was wrong about the Vietnam War.
More than ever, time spent with family and friends is precious. Seeing Alan and Sharon and Ryan and James and Jeff in NYC last weekend, and getting to spend time with Joannie and Karen and Mike this weekend, even if just to sit around hanging out, doing nothing...these all feel like stolen moments.
I'm reminded of those times when one wake up in the middle of the night to sneak a midnight snack from the fridge, and running into another light sleeper, and sharing a hot cocoa and conversation at the dinner table in a bathrobe and slippers, the only ones awake. Bonus memories.
Karen has passed out, listening to tunes on my iPod. Hopefully she's listening to a happy song.

Dilemma for espresso-drinking liberals

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Seattle is all huffy over Initiative 77, a proposal for $0.10 tax on espresso drinks to fund child day care for lower-income families.
I'm amused mostly by the editors of newspapers everywhere tripping over themselves to claim the title of worst coffee pun headline. A check on Google News reveals the following contenders:
Coffee Addicts in Froth Over Espresso Tax (Yahoo News)
Seattle residents frothing over proposed espresso tax (Katu.com)
Espresso fans working up froth (Arizona Republic)
Proposed Espresso Tax Steams Seattle (Guardian)
How soon could city grind out a new tax? (Seattle Times)
Seattle in lather over espresso tax (MSNBC)
Editorial: Espresso tax a grande idea (The Collegiate Times, VA)
Coffee drinkers perk up against espresso tax (Tuscaloosa News)
Espresso-tax debate has foes steaming (Seattle Times)

The room is on fire, and other crap

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Ooh goody. The Strokes' new album has a title (Room on Fire) and a pre-order button up at Amazon. The boys will be going on tour, and tix to some of their shows are up for sale already with reduced service charges as compared to evil institutions like Ticketmaster.
In other good news, Cory Doctorow's new short story collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More is out, and Cory has, just as he did with Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, posted much of it for free on the web at his site Craphound.
Since my DVD player lost its mind and was shipped off to the vet, I have to resort to reading and listening to music.