Proof Does any car maker

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Proof


Does any car maker use cooler music in their commercials than
Volkswagen? Love that new one "Big Day" with the guy rushing
to break up the wedding.
Saw Proof tonight with Rachael. It was fantastic. Some
math, though it wasn't really about math. Very well acted.
Contained elements from Fermat's Enigma (elliptical curves)
and A Beautiful Mind (which I've just started reading in
anticipation of the movie).
I'm trying to read lots of books before the movie adaptions
come out. Not just A Beautiful Mind, but Harry Potter,
Lord of the Rings. It may end up just detracting from
the moviegoing experience, but I'm a firm believer that while
a movie can never do certain things which a book is better
suited to do (convey a person's inner thoughts, for example)
the medium of movies does other things much better than
books (a photo is much better than a paragraph of text for
describing physical appearances, locales). If a movie is
not the book, that is not inherently bad. If it is a bad movie,
then that is bad.
So many people I know are applying to schools. Rachael
pointed out that it's not uncommon in times of recession.
I'd be a much better student now than I was back in my
university days.

Fewer Happy Meals In times

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Fewer Happy Meals


In times of recession, even Big Macs suffer. We
knew that someday the growth would end. Could this be
that day, after over 99 billion people were served?
Reminds me of the article in the Onion titled something
like "Starbucks to open new location in men's bathroom
of existing Starbucks".
You know that this terrorist stuff is an accepted part of
everyday life now that people make jokes about Osama
bin Laden. In today's Onion:
Woman With Sore Throat Thinks It Might Be Anthrax
NEW YORK

Smallville From Variety: "Young Superman

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Smallville


From Variety:
"Young Superman tale "Smallville" proved to be more
powerful than a locomotive Tuesday, premiering to
some of the best ratings in the WB net's seven-year history.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the 68-minute
premiere of the critically acclaimed "Smallville"
(9-10:08 p.m.) attracted the largest audience ever
for a series preem on the WB (8.35 million
viewers) -- outdrawing ABC's comedies and Fox's
"Love Cruise" to finish third for the hour.
It also bagged the best 18-49 rating for a Frog net
series premiere (3.8/9) as well as the best score for
any episode of any series in the WB's history among
adults 18-34 (4.5/12), men 18-34 (5.0/14) and men
18-49 (3.9/10)."
I watched the season premiere. Fairly entertaining
show, more because of the storytelling than the
special effects or the acting (the lead, who plays
Superman, is pretty unexpressive). I guess I have not
outgrown the drama of teenage angst.

Random thoughts Maybe it was

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Random thoughts


Maybe it was Sept. 11, and the anthrax scares now, or maybe
an early mid-life crisis. I'm a budding skeptic. My mind bounces
from anthrax to playoff baseball to work and around and around.
It's difficult to think much further into the future. I think I'm in
danger of losing my long-term imagination.
When Bill house hunts, or Joannie prepares for marriage, or
Michelle seeks a job in Seattle, or Howie starts business
school, I can barely think out as far as Thanksgiving.
Went to the Mariners game today. I'm resigned to the idea that
the Yankees will win it all again, and it depresses me. Please,
someone beat the Yankees. Is there anything more dull than
seeing the highest paid team in baseball win year after year?
The series doesn't line up well for the M's. Today they had a
struggling Sele against a rested Pettite. Tomorrow they have
Garcia on 3 days rest against Mussina, probably the best Yankee
starter right now (and statistically, he might have had a better
year than Clemens if you disregard W-L record). They get
the edge with Moyer in Game 3, but just barely. Williams
seems to hit Moyer very well. I think the key to the series
is giving Pineiro a start against Clemens in Game Four. Pass
up Sele.
New project at work, and it is very challenging and time-consuming.
I think I'm ready for an uptick in intensity again, though these days
with the early darkness outside and empty offices earlier than
normal, late nights at my desk are a bit, mmm, secluded.
Installed Office XP at work b/c I needed the new pivot table
interface for accessing some data cubes. So far, I don't detect
very many striking improvements. Thankfully, my custom macros
and buttons in Excel were not lost. Outlook seems to run slower
and strange bugs pop up to nag me from time to time.
I might be out in NYC on business sometime in the next two weeks.
It would be fun to see James, and Karen might head out as well.
You know, it really is very easy to download movies off the
Internet. I've never really had the urge, as watching movies on a picture
the size of a playing card on a PC with the sound coming from a
pair of PC computers holds no appeal for me. But for kicks I decided
to try it out today and managed to find all sorts of current movies
out there.
There was an interesting article in the NYTimes Magazine recently,
an issue examining love in the 21st century. The article questioned
the modern conception of love and whether or not it truly is a thing
to be desired in its most popular forms (marriage, monogamy, etc.).
If more than one in two marriages ends in divorce, might it not be an
institution in need of some adjustment? Maybe that's the accepted
calculus of marriage, that if you hit .500 you're a success. In baseball
you strike out once it's okay if you get a hit the next time out. If
your first marriage ends in divorce and you remarry, happily, you're
a one-time divorcee. Maybe the problem lies in the romantic notion
that you must find sexual attraction and lifelong companionship from
the same person (when we know that the former has a finite life).
I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say. For a man with a somewhat
skeptical bent, I found the article intriguing.
Today is the first time since last winter that I can recall seeing
temperatures fall under 50 degrees. I read 43 degrees on my way
to work this morning. Car windows frost up, and I'm reminded so
strongly of rushing out on a fall day in Naperville, preparing to
play football on a large, empty field dusted with gold and orange
leaves.
In other words, not Britney Spears singing Hit Me Baby One More
Time but more like Travis covering Hit Me Baby One More Time.
Mellow, ironic, somewhat desperate, possibly drug-influenced.

Playoff baseball is great. Because

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Playoff baseball is great. Because of the way the sport is played,
initiated by a one on one confrontation of pitcher and batter, it
provides the type of focused drama that is lacking in, say, a sport
like football.
I'm usually not a fan of letting starting pitchers throw 120, 130
pitches (it's a common precursor to season-ending arm injuries)
but in the playoffs there's something noble about it. Matt Morris
and Curt Schilling both stayed out there past 120 pitches, and
both went out firing with their best pitches. Morris with his knee
buckling curve to strike out Grace, and Schilling with his 98 mph
gas to blow away Matheny. That's baseball's equivalent of the
running back who's had about thirty carries plowing over one
linebacker and dragging another two yards for a first down in
the fourth quarter.

Don't leave your best weapons on the shelf

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Okay, you're Lou Piniella, and you're looking to pick your playoff roster. You have to leave one of the following pitchers behind. Which would you pick?





































 
Innings pitched


WHIP


ERA

Pitcher A
75.1


0.94


2.03

Pitcher B
78.1


1.28


3.56

Pitcher C
163.0


1.42


4.25

Pitcher D
66.0


1.47


4.36

Pitcher E
110.1


1.43


4.73


Pitcher A is Joel Pineiro, and he got left off the playoff roster, presumably because he's young. Well, the Mariners felt that today, when Pineiro wasn't there and Lou had to go to pitchers C, D, and E, who combined for six innings pitched, 13 runs allowed.
The Indians and Cardinals ignored the old "youths are not battle-tested for the playoffs" and started two rookies, C.C. Sabathia and Bud Smith, because they had pitched well during the regular season. Both won today.
In a short series, how likely is it that you'll want to go beyond Nelson and Rhodes as your setup men for Sasaki? Not likely, unless you're getting shelled early, and even then, you should probably just ride Rhodes and Nelson if you want to survive. You don't need Paniagua. Yes, Pineiro is a starter, but you bet a manager would use Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez or another starter as a relief pitcher if they felt it would help. Pineiro should've been on the roster, and you could make the case he should have started Game 3.

Happy birthday Emily! Happy birthday

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Happy birthday Emily!


Happy birthday Emily! Where was Scully?
Emily has the coolest pictures of herself and her friends and other
things hanging all over her house. And all this old camera equipment
just sitting on shelves everywhere. I need to start hanging up pictures
like that around my room.
I seriously doubt I'll make it to the morning bike ride. I could barely
drive to Sammamish right now, let alone ride. This rainy weather
is horrible. I'm not even sure I can make it to the morning run. I'm
such a wuss dog this week.

Dread The FBI warns of

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Dread


The FBI warns of possible terrorist attacks in the next few days.
I've gotten e-mails from all sorts of people: don't go to malls on Oct. 31,
don't handle any letters from unknown people or from the Middle East,
don't drink water from the tap, and on and on.
It's somewhat contradictory to both "alert Americans to any credible
threats about future terrorist plans" without providing any details while
at the same time saying that "Americans should go on with their lives,
there's no reason people should live in panic." But those e-mails
I'm receiving, with detailed instructions, also inspire more defined
and perhaps no less credible fears. This is how it is to live in a
nation at war.

24 year old Bean

in , ,
She says she's 24, but I think she's really 17. Damn, and I'm here trying to pluck my gray hairs. Where's the justice? What's her secret? Lots of sleep.
Took Bean to see Ben Folds with Katie who I hadn't seen in ages. They're both Ben Folds fans. I'm a Folds novice. Fun show. Ben Folds has lots of energy. Now I smell like an abandoned disco bar, or a casino carpet.
I felt really ill all day. I had stomach cramps, and then a few times today had dizzy spells. Didn't have breakfast, had a bowl of soup for lunch, and heated some dinner but couldn't stomach it and threw most of it out. During the concert my blood sugar bottomed out, and the smoke and heat started wearing me out. Haven't been sleeping well. I wonder if it's this cold, wet, miserable weather we're experiencing.
A different sort of review for The Corrections.
Poor Astros. Lost again. They've blown something like seven straight saves in the playoffs. Though they were mugged. The home plate umpire had a strike zone wider than Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit. Which raises the point, why do we, in this day and age, still expect human beings to judge the strike zone if it's such a critical determinant of wins and losses? Dierker flubbed game one by going to Mike Jackson instead of Octavio Dotel. They probably would've lost anyway. I saw the last Astros series against the Cubs, and Mlicki got shelled, and Oswalt was definitely not right.
Want to talk about some sick pitches? This has happened a few times this year, but it's still amazing to see it happen to a major league hitter. Randy Johnson threw a slider that hit a batter in the foot after he swung and missed. The batter was Albert Pujols, likely rookie of the year, and someone who had homered of Johnson in the first inning. I thought stuff like that only happened in wiffle ball. Oh well, Johnson ended up losing, again. Seven straight losses in the playoffs for currently the best pitcher in the NL. Crazy.
I'm rooting for the A's. Everyone from the GM on down in that org is pretty cool, and I definitely don't want to see the Yankees win it all again. If the A's win, maybe more Billy Beane acolytes will make it into front offices around both leagues, and as a result more teams would be assembled in a smarter fashion. Mark Mulder beat Clemens tonight, which will surprise lots of people but shouldn't. At this point in their careers, Mulder is a batter pitcher than Clemens
and probably one of the top four starters in the American League. I think this is the A's year to win it all.
Some of the Mariners fans are sweating it out. They should win game two, as Finley is washed up and barely passable as a major league starter these days. Game three should be interesting. In Cleveland, with their fans going nuts, and a hittable Aaron Sele on the mound versus rookie 17 game winner C.C. Sabathia. The latter didn't have a great ERA this year but won a ton of games. Why Piniella left Pineiro off the roster I'll never understand. Dumb dumb move.

Vanilla Sky

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Trailer for Vanilla Sky, in Quicktime.
Recently watched the original film which this movie is based on. Open Your Eyes, by Alejandro Amenabar (The Others). Penelope Cruz plays the same character in both versions.
I somehow suspect that the Cameron Crowe version will be lighter. Hmm, maybe it's the use of Salsbury Hill in the trailer.
I don't think Penelope Cruz is necessarily the end all be all, but her accent is super sexy. Cameron Diaz--I'm not sure I'll ever be able to take her in a serious role (which is another reason I think this version will be a lot lighter than the original). Tom Cruise is a 2-D actor, a one-trick pony. He compensates for his limited range by having generic good looks and a lot of ambition. Hopefully he will not turn this role into "Jerry Maguire with a facial deformity."

Adobe Dodo Adobe applications are

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Adobe Dodo


Adobe applications are so unintuitive to me. I can use maybe 10 basic
functions in Photoshop, but the rest is Greek to me. Until they come up
with a more intuitive metaphor for image editing, I think most Adobe
applications will continue to be toys for the serious graphic artist.
Not that that's a bad thing, but there's a lot of money to be made off
the masses (think Microsoft Office) in this space, as we all start
owning digital cameras. Maybe Photoshop LE is that software.

Alternative combat

in ,
Bored with the usual sports like football, basketball? Try BattleBots or the Iron Chef. I recently watched a bit of both and give them high marks for entertainment value.
Modern warfare is absolutely terrifying in an abstract way. Sept. 11 was so strange in that it was as concrete a manifestation of terrorism as can be (two gigantic buildings actually collapsed), and yet it was so completely unbelievable. Airplanes crashing into the World Trade Centers, which then collapsed? It's a Dali-esque nightmare come to life. Every several years or so when I was young, I'd have this nightmare that the entire world, everything, was coming to an end. At least that's the best way I have to describe it. A feeling of complete terror and desperation. And then I'd wake up, my heart would be pounding, and I'd be so happy to realize it was over that I would feel complete elation.

Spoonful of sugar I don't

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Spoonful of sugar


I don't normally watch The West Wing, so I am not familiar with all the
characters. Still, after a long run on Wednesday night, I had to sit down
and ice my weary knees, and nothing else looked appealing in the 9p.m.
time slot. Plus, I'd heard lots about how they delayed the season
premiere one week to air this special episode, pulled together by
Aaron Sorkin and company in the wake of Sept. 11.
My opinion? It was like a well-done liberal after-school special.
I was reminded of the ending of G.I. Joe cartoons
"Now you know, kids."
"And knowing is half the battle!"
Seriously, who were these school kids? They were not normal.
Of course, the Arab they hold for questioning early on was
going to be innocent, despite having protested against the
U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and acknowledged the Arab oppression
of women. And at the end of the show, he shrugs off his
inquisition and heads back to work, and Leo comes by and
apologizes. The easy way out, intended to make us feel
as if the moral balance has been re-established and it's
safe for Arabs and others to work and play together again.
The real world is not nearly so clean.
Rob Lowe: "Terrorism never succeeds. It only strengthens
that which it attacks." It sounds good, but that's not how
I feel. The world is a scary place. I'm waiting for biological
weapons to fall, the next terrorist attack. I don't want to travel
to the Middle East any more. Sure, the U.S. is not going
away. But I do think I had greater peace of mind before
all this happened, and watching the West Wing did not
change any of that.
I admire the acting on the show, though. The characters
are smooth, glib. The Islamic extremists are to Islam as
KKK are to Christianity bit was clever. The whole episode
struck me as a sugar-coated, pompous weigh-in on the
whole matter. We are the West Wing, and the nation needs
to hear our opinion about Sept. 11, because we are that
culturally important. I say, just post some phone numbers
that people can call to contribute to the relief efforts, and
go on with your show.

The Zone When I was

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The Zone


When I was in Chicago, Mike, Derek, Joannie and I stopped
at the ESPNZone center downtown. It's like Gameworks, but
sports focused. Lots of arcade games, a giant sports bar with
a whole wall of TV screens, scrolling sports tickers, and lots
of TVs broadcasting various ESPN channels. We decided
to play pop-a-shot, and in team competition against the
three of them I scored 124 in pop-a-shot classic. That's by
far my all-time high. I was in a serious zone, everything was
going down. I'm putting that down on my resume.