SUV for those who least need one

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Porsche is finally pulling back the curtains on their entry in the SUV market, the Cayenne.
The turbo version goes from 0 to 62mph in 5.6 seconds. That's flat out ridiculous. Seriously, who needs that kind of power in an SUV? Gas-guzzling, environmentally unfriendly, pretentious SUV for people whose closest encounter with offroad driving is when their teenager runs over their lawn on their first attempt to learn to drive. Totally preposterous.
I want one.

Or not evolving

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Where did I read this recently? Human evolution has slowed significantly with the advent of social safety nets like cities and laws which protect all people, regardless of their genetic deficiencies. These days everyone survives, even the slow, the blind, the weak, the ugly. Evolutionary forces which might have conspired to continually improve us now make it possible for those who would have been weeded out by sabre-tooth tigers or those who would have failed to procreate because of unattractive figures or personalities to find mates (often equally unworthy of climbing the Darwinian ladder) and pass their flawed DNA onto the next generation. Medical advances like LASIK eye surgery allow people to overcome or at least compensate for their weaknesses.
Is that not depressing? The most advanced society creates the most diluted gene pool. Look around you--this may be as good-looking and smart a crew as you'll see.

Evolving

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Changing the look of my weblog a bit. For those of you who subscribe to get my posts by e-mail, I forgot that every time I publish, an e-mail is sent. Hopefully you all didn't get spammed to death while I experimented with different looks and layouts. Still a work in progress.
Apologies for those who'll need to squint to read the new, smaller type. It's an attempt at greater information density and a more newspaper-like look.

Gap ads

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Those Gap ads I mentioned are available in Quicktime format from the Gap website.
My favorite is the Coen brothers ad for white shirts, with Dennis Hopper and Christina Ricci. Mostly because I like the way the camera zooms slowly away, at a pace that mirrors the music. (On a sidenote--caught some of the rerun of last week's episode of 24 last night, and Dennis Hopper's supposed Eastern European accent, I think it's supposed to be Bosnian, is laughably bad).
This trend of using big-name movie directors to direct commercials that are streamed on the web...I like it. The BMWFilms were great, and let's face it, commercial films are rarely all that different from filmed commercials (Scorpion King, anyone? Disney toy Happy Meals?). Good directors can sell a story visually. Why not a product? Streaming on the web is cheaper than showing these on television and reaches an attractive upscale demographic.
Books should be marketed as well as movies are.

Adam and Jenny

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Last last Sunday, Adam and Jenny got married. I've been meaning to wait until my photos from that day were developed to jot down some thoughts, but I threw in a roll of 36 and ended up dancing too much to finish it off. I promised Jenny I'd record an entry for her before she returned from the honeymoon in Italy, and what's more personal a gift than the written word, besides the random kitchen housewares one usually purchases off a wedding registry? When I get married, I'll throw a few items on my wedding registry, but they'll be more likely to produce binary digital or audio data than they will a loaf of bread.
I learned during the wedding ceremony that Jenny and Adam first met at my Star Wars marathon movie night leading up to the release of Episode I. This was exciting news, and I thought about standing up to acknowledge my huge role in this union, but I don't think that is part of the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony. I was also around
the night of their first kiss (well, I actually wasn't there when it happened, but work with me, people, as I grossly exagerrate my role in their courtship).
Jenny: I recognized your photographer from somewhere. Who was he again? Why do I know him?
Adam's brother looks a lot like Adam. I point this out only because everyone always says I look nothing like my sisters (that is, they're much better looking than I am).
Of course, Jenny and Adam were hoisted on chairs and carried around the dance floor. That's a fun tradition. I later sat in one of the chairs and looked about expectantly but apparently that's a privelege reserved for the bride and groom. In accordance with their first meeting, it would have been nice if I could have levitated Jenny and Adam in those chairs using the Force, as Luke did for C3P0 in Return of the Jedi to spook the ewoks.
Lots of fun dancing. I need to stop wearing ties to functions where dancing is involved and where any woman named Kristin is present. Inevitably I'm dragged around by my tie like a small dog on the dance floor. Maybe it's my hair, or my soulful puppy eyes? I have a few ties in my wardrobe that are about a foot longer than all my others.
Adam and Jenny are really happy when they're around each other. That, in essence, is all you need to know about why they'll have a long and happy marriage together. Adam will provide his trademark witty humor, and Jenny will help to provide clarity in decision-making and honest, open communications. I know because I've been the lucky recipient many times in the past.
Oh yeah, Jenny was the one that helped me recall the word "ditto", which I wrote about in my weblog previously. That was driving me nuts.
Adam has the all-time lowest score on the body fat tester I have lying around. Everyone was over watching a movie one night and once someone asks what that thing does, inevitably everyone has to go through the nervous moment of truth. Most people generally run to the far corner of the room and refuse to let anyone see their score until
they've seen it first. I think Adam scored 7% or 8%. I state this so that when I finally do post some photos from the wedding everyone will look at Adam closely to see what 8% body fat looks like.
Coolest thing? The groom's cake was made of Krispy Kreme donuts and had a small Pedro Martinez figure on top--now that's thoughtful. Who doesn't believe in evolution? Darwinian forces have shaped even fat itself into this most enticing of forms, the original glazed Krispy Kreme donut. Now how, Adam, do you get away with loving Krispy Kreme donuts and maintaining single digit body fat? And get into Harvard Business School?
A very smart couple. A couple of sharp cookies.
The other great thing about Adam and Jenny is that they're two of my faithful weblog readers (I may be embarrassing Adam to say that, but since he has his own weblog now I will both out him and send traffic his way, and hers too).
What's the right phrase? Happy wedding? Merry wedding? Or maybe just congratulations?
Yeah. Congratulations.
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I'm experiencing title block. Thus the lack of titles on these weblog entries.
Seattle sports weekend. Yankees-Mariners game on Friday night. Rocket Roger Clemens shut the Mariners down. I found a baseball under my seat at the game. I've never caught a foul ball at a game. This will have to do, I suppose. Once at Wrigley Field I rushed out into the aisle in pursuit of a high pop foul, my eyes aimed skyward, locked on the ball, while my legs carried me on the shortest path towards its landing point. Unfortunately, this meant I didn't spot the very man with the "body by Budweiser and ballpark franks" heading towards that same location with a baseball glove. Whammo. He deposited me several rows back and probably gave me a minor concussion. The moral of the story is that any weenie over the age of 7 who brings a baseball glove to a baseball game to catch a foul ball is a weenie. You can be sure he doesn't know how to play baseball.
Afterwards, a quick pitstop at Temple billiards to grab a drink. Some random schmo tried to pick up on Nik, and she gracefully and sweetly sent him on his way (as she has to do about three time a night whenever she is out). That is a very Seattle convention, the kinder, gentler rebuff. In NYC most women don't even bother responding. Which is fine, too. Clarity in communications is underrated. Oh, where was I? Oh yeah, sports.
Saturday I saw the San Antonio Spurs demolish the Sonics. The most impressive thing about the game was that Tony Parker stepped up to give Tim Duncan and the Spurs their needed second scoring option. Parker is 19 years old. Some of the Sonics dance team girls could be his mother. He crossed over Payton about five times in the game and made the Glove look silly.
Danny Ferry has one of the ugliest jump shots of any professional basketball player. Ferry and Cherokee Parks should warm the hearts of Duke-haters everywhere. Parks job is to do whatever Tim Duncan tells him to do, and to pray that no one ever asks him to justify his spot on the Spurs payroll through any demonstration of actual basketball skill.
Last Thursday was Teatro Zinzanni. Is that a sport? I've seen it twice in Seattle now, and both times the heart of the show has been the male ringmaster/host who dresses up as a woman and pulls random men out of the crowd to embarrass them with tawdry humor and lighthearted innuendo. The crowd, mostly older, ate it up. The older you get, the funnier everything must seem. Maybe I'll be a hearty laugher in twenty years as well instead of a grumpy critic.
Basketball Saturday morning, biking this afternoon, and some frisbee. I can't feel my legs.
There you go--managed to bring it back to sports in the end. Probably could have given this entry a title related to sports.
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A popular online comic strip created just after September 11, 2001: Get Your War On.
Done in response to various things, including an article in Vanity Fair that declared that irony was dead in the face of Sept. 11.
Complacency or naivete about terrorism, perhaps. Not irony, though. Or lousy movies about terrorism, for that matter.
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Saw this in IMDb news clips:
Actors Orlando Bloom and Kate Beckinsale are to feature in new ads for clothing giants Gap. Three new TV ads have been directed by Cameron Crowe, the eccentric Coen Brothers and Roman Coppola. Bloom and Beckinsale feature in Crowe's ad as a couple being chased by a group of admirers while out for a stroll. The ad directed by the Coen Brothers sees Christina Ricci beating Dennis Hopper in a game of chess, while Coppola's effort features Scarlett Johansson and Ashton Kutcher riding bikes.

Common language

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Karen Hughes, arguably George W. Bush's top aide, is moving back to Texas so her son can attend high school there. She was often credited with ensuring that Bush spoke in the language that the regular Joe can relate to and understand.
It's often argued that one reason Bush defeated Gore in the last election was that while Bush's speeches and quotes were often inarticulate, Gore's speech was condescending, highbrow, and lacking in charisma. Clinton was a powerful politician because he managed to merge the good points of both sides.
Speaking of resignations, there's some tabloid-style intrigue going down at the Harvard Business Review. Protests, affairs, divorces, Jack Welch, journalistic integrity under fire. Anyone who discounts the price of being famous is naive. What you get in exchange for your wealth and fame is the chance to deal with random press and amateur weblog gawking.

Crank

Everyone is cranky. Coworkers, rotisserie baseball managers, random strangers... I'm starting to get cranky, too. I wanted to flip out today, but I managed to count to ten. Maybe it's lack of sleep, or the long and lousy bout of winter weather, or just a general need for a vacation. My patience is running very thin this week. I could feel the frown on my face growing all day, like the gradual tightening of a violin string, or the rising pressure in your ear as a plane lifts off.
I need to cool off, because blowing up is rarely productive, and not something I admire in others. But more than ever I'm realizing why I need parts of my life that are my own, cordoned off with barbed wire and rabid dogs.
One, two, three, four, five, six...

Atonement

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A quote by Ian McEwan in an article in the New York Times today: "Not to write seems to me to be a gross rebuke of the gift of consciousness."
The article was about McEwan's latest novel Atonement. I have a small pile of his books by my bed and have been meaning to dive in. I'm at an all-time high in terms of number of books I've started and am only partway through. There's barely any floorspace next to my bed now.

Getting good buzz

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A positive shout from Time about Episode II. Looks like they bagged the early mainstream media exclusive with Lucas and company on this one.
JetBlue--the next Southwest? I've heard about its leather seats and its cheap fares to New York.
Nikon D1X. I don't have a digital camera yet, but if I did, this is the one I'd want.

Random fame

On the web, it doesn't take much to get a massive infusion of traffic to your site. Make sure your computer has its sound turned up.

Fashion forward

Juli, my fashion consultant, helped me to pick out a pair of glasses on Saturday down at Marketplace Optical. As Susannah, the lady who worked there, explained, Marketplace specializes in frames that are "fashion forward." That basically means glasses that don't make you look like a geek.
Juli is a graphic designer, an illustrator, and one of the most stylish dressers I know. I highly recommend that you get to know someone like that to help you pick out clothes, glasses, artwork and furniture, etc. If I were wealthy and famous, I'd probably have names of people like that in my Rolodex (er, Palm Pilot, perhaps, in this day and age? that might be passe now also) for all occasions. I'm not, but I still have Juli, and thank heavens for that. Shopping will never be the same again.
I've never really worn glasses, but I'm a big fan. I can't wait to get my specs and transform into, mmm, someone else. Not quite me. Someone I'd like to be. A better me. Clark Kent.

Mercer morning loop

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Did a loop of Mercer with Tim and Jessie this morning, and that's like chasing two motorcycles. Yikes. It is proof, though, that there's nothing that will push you harder than having a workout partner who can kick your a$$ six ways from Sunday. That's true in life generally. Hopefully you come to a point in your life where you're secure enough to swim with bigger, faster, smarter sharks in all aspects of life. I'm closer to that than I have been in the past. It's humbling because the majority of the time I feel like an idiot, a sloth, or the ugly duckling. But I'm secure with where I stand. If it were any other way, life would be so dull.

Random acts of kindness

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Have you read Lucky Jim? Damn good book.
Have been feeling a bit weary this week, mentally and physically. It's the feeling you get when you try to solve the Saturday or Sunday NYTimes crossword puzzle. Lots of work, brows furrowed, minimal progress. At some point you're ready to just cheat, but the answers don't come out until tomorrow, and by then you just don't care anymore.
My one antidote to this general malaise has been to dress more formally this week. Dress shirts every day, nice wool slacks. I don't know why. Perhaps it goes back to my college days, when Sam used to say, "If you dress well, you test well." I sometimes wore a tie to midterms or finals. Was there a correlation? No clue.
I think I'm supposed to be watching The Osbournes. Has anyone seen it?
David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven, Panic Room, among others) is close to signing up to direct Mission Impossible 3. Hmm, that's an odd combination.
There are three words in the English language that start with the letters "dw". Don't cheat and look it up. You have one minute to think of all three. Two of them are similar in meaning. I heard this in an episode of The West Wing from season 1, which is out on Region 2 DVD from the UK. At the time, it was likely one of the two best shows on TV, and it might still be. Anyhow, I'll post the answer in the comments field later.
Read an article on Alduous Huxley recently, can't remember where. He believed that humans needed chemical assistance to realize the full potential of their brains. On his deathbed, he asked to be injected with LSD, and I wonder what he saw as he moved off this plane. We should all hope for such an interesting and memorable death, like the supposed death of Nietzsche. Supposedly, he saw a horse that had just been whipped to death lying on the ground, and he went to the horse, hugged it, and wept. I really really hope it's a true story.

Author's Guild protest against Amazon.com

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Ken sent me this link to this sensible rebuttal by Sylvia Nasar (author of A Beautiful Mind, the biography) to the recent Author's Guild protest against the way that Amazon features used books for sale on its website. Nasar was recently elected to the board of the Author's Guild.
From the letter from the Author's Guild to all its members, urging them to stop linking to Amazon.com, it's apparent that the Author's Guild has fallen into the trap of believing that siding against free market economics and their very own readers in the name of financial gain is somehow sustainable.
The Internet is wonderful because it has forced business people who depend on inefficient markets to become more customer-focused. Music labels who have kept CD prices high are now wringing their hands over declining music sales which they attribute to Napster and other file-sharing services.
In this case, physical space has been collapsed. The shortest distance between two places in the physical world is a straight line, but more often it is a windy path over streets, around blocks over and over again to find a parking spot, and then a hike over to your final destination. The Author's Guild doesn't protest used book stores because, frankly, there aren't that many of them and they're hard to get to. Customers who once wanted to shop for both Prada and Target once had to drive long distances because the Prada's of the world don't want their stores showing up next to discounters. They could use physical distance to mimic the distance between their brands (and their prices).
Online the shortest distance between two places is not even a hyperlink. It's to put two things next to each other on the same page. As a customer, if you could buy a used copy of a book for cheaper than a new copy, wouldn't you want to know about that option when you were on the page listing the new copy? You wouldn't want to buy the new copy only to find out later that a used copy was available but was located elsewhere on the website. That's what the Author's Guild wants Amazon to do.
I've bought a ton of used books since Amazon launched the service, but it has only increased my overall book spend. I buy used copies of books I'm not really sure about--it may be an author I haven't heard of. In the past, I would have just not purchased the book. When I know I want a book, I still buy the original hardcover because I want to keep a nice first print in my library. For a few books, I keep both a hardcover first print and a paperback copy that I use as a reading copy or a loaner to friends.
Certainly, I hope to be a published artist of some sort some day, and if I am, I would only hope that an active used market existed for my works. The Grateful Dead are probably grateful that their fans actively trade bootlegs of their concerts. Far worse to be an author who sees his books fail to generate demand even in the used market. Those unfortunate souls have no chance of even generating any revenue to be "lost" to the used market.

Phunny site

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Interesting interpretations of films.
I liked this take on Memento by Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club (which was a great book, better than the movie, though that was pretty damn good too).
Or this interpretation of Training Day as the education of George Bush Jr. by his dad.
All of this reminds me of Quentin Tarantino's speech from Sleep With Me, the one which claims Top Gun is about Maverick's struggle with his homosexuality.

Proliferation of weblogs

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Weblogs are gaining notoriety because famous people are starting to create them. Perhaps this is a tipping point for weblogs. They've already gotten a ton of press this year. No one should be surprised when the web is flooded with a slew of boring, poorly-written weblogs. There are plenty already. But weblogs won't disappear or fade away like so many Internet fads. The web is not as wondrous a place as it once was--there are few new websites that blow anyone away. Personal weblogs provide a unique daily diversion for folks--I think of it as mental exhibitionism (on the part of the blogger) and mental voyeurism (on the part of the reader).
A sampling of celeb weblogs:
RuPaul
Moby
Jeff Bridges
Melanie Griffith
Douglas Rushkoff
Neil Gaiman
Finally, perhaps, we can hear celebrities uncensored, not filtered through their agents or publicists. We can laugh at ones who can't write, ignore those who use their weblogs for marketing themselves, and realize that celebrities may not be any more interesting than people we know. I predict that in a year and a half, the celeb who doesn't have some sort of website up will be the exception rather than the rule. True, weblogs may no longer be cool (everyone blames Mariah Carey for having tainted the whole affair), but they're a welcome diversion from checking stock quotes on the web every morning.
Someday the history of weblogs will be traced, and for me the weblog as I think of it (personal diary on the web) started with web developers I knew and spread out from there.

Tax day

The one day each year where people everywhere complain when they don't receive a refund and have to write a check to the government even though a refund means that the government borrowed money from you with every paycheck throughout the previous year without paying you any interest. And now they're giving that money back to you. Far better to have borrowed money from the government and now pay them back. But if you really want that refund at this time of year, please send me a check for what you think your withholding tax will be for this upcoming year. Next year on April 15 I'll give you a check back so you can feel great about getting a refund.

Postal rate hikes

Effective June 30, the price of a first-class stamp will increase 8.8%, from 34

Rostropovich

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Happy 75th birthday to Mstislav Rostropovich, perhaps the world's leading cellist, and also a great man. I saw him play the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Seattle Symphony tonight, and it was a grand occasion. The Symphony was in great form, and they've been up and down in the concerts I've seen this year so this was a pleasant surprise.
Rostropovich got a gazillion standing ovations. Some were for his performance, but most were for the man. Slava, as he is affectionately known, has done some great humanitarian things in his life. For his final encore, maestro Gerard Schwartz and the symphony surprised him with a rendition of Happy Birthday.