OKfine

I finally succumbed to FriendFeed. What is it, you ask? Well, my sexy yet apparently-cave-dwelling reader, it's a site that aggregates all the various social networking web apps into one spot. So instead of trying to track my friends' Tweets, Flickr updates, YouTube uploads, blog posts, etc., etc... I just track it all on FriendFeed. Is this not nifty?

Yes. It is nifty.

I will find a way to incorporate it as a sidebar here on my blog. In fact, I'm thinking of updating the layout here a bit. We'll see how that goes.

Labels: meta

• 8:58 AM 0 comments

Wanted

"Wanted" is badass but shallow. It's more cynical (cynical means assuming people and their motives are base, rather than noble) than "Fight Club". It's not as funny or as ultimately inspiring as "Office Space". And it's more misogynistic and unreal (bending bullets?) than "The Matrix".

I enjoyed the spectacle but I didn't like where it was going.

Thanks to Pajiba's review for the comparison of "Wanted" to those three movies. Hard to believe they all came out in 1999, isn't it?

Labels: movies

• 2:29 AM 0 comments

Do you know all the words?

I love Schoolhouse Rock even more today than I did when I was a kid.

Do you know all the words to the Preamble to the Constitution? I do. And I tend to sing it, just as it's sung in this song:

We, the People,
In order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice
ensure domestic tran-quil-i-tee hee-ee-ee,
provide for the common defense
promote the general welfare, an-nd
secure the blessings of liber-ty
to ourselves and our posteri-ty,

Do ordain and establish
this Constitution
Forrrrrr
The United State of
Am-er-i-caaaaa!!

"Right On!" indeed. • 5:40 PM 0 comments

Thank you, Senator Wyden

Senator Ron Wyden will support a fillibuster of the tragically unconstitutional FISA rewrite.

Thank you, Senator Wyden. • 8:59 PM 0 comments

Spinning

...OK, now I want to try that. Off to the mall! • 7:00 PM 0 comments

What I won't trade for trust

"Whoo! Yeah, sexy! How you doin'?"

I turned my head to the right as I walked home. From the sidewalk I could see the woman who had just called out to me. She sat in a lawn chair along with several others, visible in the back yard of a house in my neighborhood.

Yes, she was looking at me.

"And whatcha got in that bag?" she yelled out again.

I kept walking.

I had donuts in the bag. • 8:50 PM 1 comments

Everything is on the internet

Sure, you've heard of imdb, the Internet Movie Database.

But have you ever heard of imFdb? The Internet Movie Firearms Database?

See, the "F" stands for "Firearms".

If you ever watched a movie and thought, "hey, what kind of gun did Rambo use?" this would be your first best resource. Unlike, say, the bajillions of other sites that would come up in a Google search, the imfdb focuses on guns. • 1:19 PM 0 comments

Not yet naked

Crouched down against the concrete wall of an industrial park, I looked out into Saturday night in NW Portland and a sea of people, mostly young, in various stages of undress and revelry. All body shapes were represented: tall, short, large, small, male, female, non-conformist. Music with a beat thumped out into the cold air. It was dark, around 10:30 PM.

Bikes everywhere. Beer being drunk. Laughing, both uproarious and nervous.

And dancing. Much dancing.

I was just taking it all in. I had not yet taken any clothes off, but I knew I would. I was waiting until closer to midnight, when this huge party crowd would be mounting their tall bikes, their mountain bikes, their retro cruiser bikes, their stripped-down fixies, and even their Clevercycles and unicycles and skateboards and every other kind of human-powered wheeled contraption, and take to the streets of Portland.

Naked. As naked as they want to be.

I was just getting over a cold, and I knew that riding in the naked would likely cause a relapse, but I wasn't going to miss it. But the extra layer of mental protectionism that kept me clothed until the last minute also kept me a bit separate from the pre-ride party. I was an observer, not a participant. Not yet.

I pulled out my phone and keyed in a text:

To: Tracy:

I hate being in a crowd and feeling so alone.

Almost immediately came her reply:

Go make some new friends!

To which I responded:

That seems more difficult than riding my bike naked.

As brave as I might be for riding naked, I still had the cover of being one of thousands. And yet, I still felt self-pity.

Almost as soon as I received Tracy's "LOL! OK." in reply, I glanced up and saw a guy who looked barely old enough to drink, tall, thin, dark hair - geeky - look at me and smile.

"Is this your first time?" he asked.

After asking him to repeat himself (it was noisy and my ears were still stuffed up from the cold, not out of rudeness), I told him, "No, actually, it's my second. You?"

His smile, already sheepish, became even more so. "Yes! I just wanted to come see if this was really happening."

I laughed. "Oh, it's happening."

"So... how naked are you going to get?"

I wondered, briefly, if he was picking up on me or just looking for a safe person to talk to. I was flattered either way, though I didn't swing that way. "I'm going to get all the way naked. But not just yet."

He continued to make small talk - he biked all the way from Milwaukie, south of Portland - while I continued to think about what kind of vibe I was giving off.

And then an older woman, glasses, gray hair, dressed in sensible sandals and pants and a technical jacket, approached us from the other side. "Hi," she said, cautiously. "Is this your first time?"

She was, like the kid, mainly there out of curiosity. Would this actually happen? She was looking for a friend of hers, though with the crowd growing larger by the minute, it seemed unlikely that she would find her. And she was, as I suspected, gay and out.

She joined in our conversation, each of us talking about just how amazing this was that so many people could come together for such a silly and subversive idea as riding a bike naked. Without pointing out any one person in particular, we expressed amazement at the variety of people present. And as it turns out, I was the one who had done it before.

The kid was a college student. The woman was an activist and social worker.

And, again: what kind of vibe do I give off, that out of that huge crowd I became the focus point for a young boy and an older lesbian? • 8:28 AM 2 comments

Things I learned this week 4

Holy crab I learned a lot this week!

• Senator Barack Obama, the nominal Democratic nominee for President and the candidate I support, is not a liberal or progressive, but a centrist. As are most of the Democrats in Congress. And at least as it pertains to probable cause and civil liberties. It's OK; I had the same problem with Bill Clinton and yet, overall, Clinton turned out to be a decent president. Doesn't mean I'm not going to complain, though. And if you disagree, so should you.


• I can learn more about bicycle maintenance from the internets!


• Watch this video closely and try to figure out the sound he's making. Then close your eyes or look away and just listen. Seeing is not believing.


• I just knew it was rum that gave me the worst hangovers, not tequila. And it turns out Cuervo Gold is almost half cheap rum. Go figure. (via John Gruber)


• I'm an average-paced runner in Oregon, even now, for 10Ks, according to Kelly Johnson's calculations.


• I haven't gotten any paper phone books in the three days since I signed up at this website. (via Dale at the Faith in Honest Doubt)


• "Faith" healing... doesn't. Still. Ever.


• Likewise, some people are so blinded by religion that they hope concealing their religious motives somehow makes it OK to scar and disfigure children in their care. John Scalzi explains:
  

  First, yes, I’ve heard about the middle-school science teacher here in Ohio who is getting fired for branding crosses into the flesh of his students with a high frequency generator, and who was also slipping religion into his science teaching. Oops.
  
  What stands in my mind, however, is this bit from the article, in which the teacher explained “he simply was trying to demonstrate the device on several students and described the images as an ‘X,’ not a cross.” Because, you see, zapping an “X” into the flesh of your pubescent students with a tool that outputs 50,000 volts a pop is not a problem.



• I'm going to bet that the creators of this material, which is the blackest black ever, so black that light just seems to fall into it, are fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It just makes sense.


• There are girls out there who would both a) consent to ride topless or naked through the streets of Portland, and b) yell at guys taking pictures of them in a way that girl doesn't like. Funny!


• Lastly, this tracking shot, from the end of last Friday's mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica, is an instant TV classic, I believe. I'm linking it rather than embedding because it's a huge spoiler if you haven't seen the episode yet.

• 8:45 AM 0 comments

"Get Smart"

"Get Smart" is mostly cute. My only major reservation (and I admit it's kind of a big one) is a completely generic spy plot that could have been written at any time in the last 40 years. Seriously. Russian nukes? Talk about a throwback to the Cold War. Were the writers of the movie asleep for the past several decades?

Luckily I have a huge soft spot for Steve Carell and Dwayne Johnson and Alan Arkin and Masi Oka. And Anne Hathaway is leggy and kinda bitchy, which as anyone who knows me knows is a turn-on.

And the opening scene, when Carell as Maxwell Smart walks through a museum showcasing relics of the TV version of "Get Smart", including the beloved red Sunbeam Tiger... ah, that tweaks the nostalgia bones.

It's a little strange to see someone talking into a shoe phone to someone else on a cell phone. We've come a long way, baby. Cone of silence still doesn't work, though.

And it really shouldn't.

Labels: movies

• 8:23 AM 0 comments

My letter to Bill Burton, spokesman for the Obama '08 Campaign

Mr. Burton:

Back in October, you stated, as a spokesman for the Senator, in simple, clear terms that Barack Obama would support a filibuster of any bill that contained retroactive immunity for the telecommunication companies that broke the law at the President's urging.

Yesterday Barack Obama went back on that promise, by backing away and saying he would "work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses".

That is not enough and it does not fulfill the promise you made on behalf of Senator Obama's presidential campaign.

Many people are watching this bill, and are continuing to take action to prevent it from becoming signed in to law by the least popular President in the history of polling. I, as do many others, understand that the retroactive immunity contained in the bill is just one of many provisions that are damaging to the core principles of our Constitution and specifically the Fourth Amendment. The bill enacts and makes legal many of the illegal practices the Bush Administration began in 2001, prior to the attacks on American soil on September 11th, putting the lie to the idea that forgoing the protections and freedoms guaranteed in our country is necessary to keep us safe. If President Bush's illegal wiretapping did not prevent the horror of the attacks on that fateful day, why is the Democratic leadership joining with the Republicans to retroactively enable them?

As an Obama supporter, I am holding the Senator to his promise, and I will urge my friends and family to do so as well.

*****
NOTE: If you agree with me that Senator Obama should keep his promise and stand up for our civil liberties, email Mr. Burton, or use the phone number listed at MoveOn and follow up to let MoveOn know what response, if any, you received. • 2:17 PM 0 comments

My letter to Senator Ron Wyden

The FISA re-write passed by the House today (against the objections of a majority of the Democratic caucus) is not a "compromise" at all.

The "exclusivity" clause in Title I, which Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer both claimed were strong counters, are no stronger than the exclusivity clause that President Bush ignored in the previous version of FISA, a clause wiped away with a simple secret memo from John Woo. President Bush felt free to ignore the law before; why would he care now, when he is a lame duck?

The granting of retroactive immunity enshrines into law the shocking Nixonian claim "if the President says so, it is not illegal" and finally establishes the telecommunications corporations just as much above the law as the Bush Administration, to the detriment of our democracy and our Constitution.

Senator Obama stated today his opposition to the retroactive immunity portion of the bill, but would only go so far as to suggest trying to remove that portion. Because he is the nominal head of the Democratic Party, I cannot believe that this bill did not come to pass without either his direct involvement, or at least his blessing. Perhaps he wishes to make use of it's many provisions for collecting "intelligence" on American citizens... or his own political enemies... in addition to those who see America as a threat to themselves. I support Senator Obama in his bid for the Presidency, but I do not wish him to be a monarch; I wish him to be a President of a democratic (small "d") republic. Perhaps Sen. Obama is under the mistaken belief, as Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, and Senate Majority Leader Reid seem to be, that giving the White House and Republicans in Congress more than they wanted in intelligence gathering is "bipartisan compromise" is seen by American voters as "being strong".

Not so, Senator Wyden. Not so.

Perhaps you can have the courage to put the Constitution and the country ahead of party and politics. Perhaps you can step up and prevent this erosion of our rights. Perhaps you can take action that other more fearful (or calculating) politicians seem unable to do.

A simple "hold" can stop this bill in its tracks. A fillibuster can derail it. Do not give cover to those who broke the law. Do not allow the most unpopular president in history any victory at all.

Many are paying attention to this matter, including myself. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is paying attention. Glenn Greenwald is paying attention. The ACLU is paying attention. And we are all working to elect more and better Democrats. Be the kind of Democratic Senator the majority wish to see. • 6:41 PM 0 comments

Majority Leader Hoyer

I sent the following email this morning to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:

I'm paying attention. So many others are paying attention, too. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is paying attention. Glenn Greenwald is paying attention. The ACLU is paying attention. And citizens on the right are paying attention, as well.

Allowing the law-breaking telecoms to get off scott-free for their crimes (why would they need amnesty unless they committed crimes?) is not what the American public hungers for. Allowing the extremely unpopular Bush Administration to escape accountability is not what America desires. Allowing any president, whether Democratic or Republican, unlimited power to spy on citizens is not freedom.

Money is being raised specifically to educate voters in your district, Majority Leader Hoyer. Hope you've enjoyed your political career.

It sounds threatening, doesn't it? I'm kinda mad about the whole thing, I guess. But I'm just threatening him with voting him out of office, at most. Like Kos said:

We kicked Joe Lieberman out of the caucus. We got rid of Al Wynn this year. Those were test runs, so to speak. We've got a lot more of that ready to unleash in 2010.

More and better Democrats, both. Let's make sure our government reflects the values of the majority for once. • 8:37 AM 0 comments

Things I think but never say out loud 1

Part 1 of many.

"Hanging that cell phone right there makes your hips look wider."

• 3:09 PM 0 comments

"The Fall"

Since I was downtown yesterday, after I left work around 4:30 I decided to go see a movie. I've had a free pass via my massive patronage of Regal Cinemas and their points system, and I've wanted to see "The Fall" since I saw the trailer.

The story was beautiful and sad. At the turn of the century, Roy, a stunt man for early silent movies, finds himself in a hospital after an injury - or was it a suicide attempt? His girlfriend had left him for the leading man. While recuperating, he befriends a little immigrant girl who seems more than eager to tell stories and steal. Roy tells her an epic story of The Masked Bandit and his co-horts, The Indian, Luigi the Explosives Expert, The Slave, The Mystic, and Charles Darwin and his monkey, Wallace, on a quest to destroy the evil Governor Odious.

The movie makes great use of cinematography and colors. It looks amazing. And it's all filmed in a shifting, dream-like way, where a camera pan reveals an entirely different scene as it shifts, and the story-world of the Masked Bandit meshes with the equally dream-like real life in the hospital. There's an element of "The Wizard of Oz" to it, as people from the hospital end up in the story world.

I love this movie. It's a keeper.

Labels: movies

• 8:21 AM 0 comments

To my Congressional Representative

I sent the following to Earl Blumenauer, my representative from Oregon CD-03, regarding my previous post and my donation to educate voters about the dangerous FISA rewrite and telecom amnesty:

This is just a short note, but I wanted to mention to Congressman Blumenauer that I, along with a couple thousand others, have donated to a fund to raise money for a campaign to educate voters about House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's efforts to thwart accountability for the telecom corporations for assisting the Bush Administrations' illegal surveillance (and thus, thwart any accountability for the Bush Administration itself).

I blogged about it, briefly, here:

http://bamoon.com/2008/06/politics.php

More and more evidence comes out every day about the crimes of the Bush Administration. Our Congressional representatives, and especially the leadership, needs to understand that giving away our rights is not seen as a strength. Giving the Bush Administration and Republicans what they want is not "bipartisanship", it's weakness. Allowing crimes to go un-acknowledged is cowardice. And trying to play games by granting a "get out of jail free" card but calling it something else is a transparent power grab.

And voters notice these things.

Tell your caucus leader and Speaker Pelosi that there is more to gain by opposing White House demands, than by playing political games and giving them what they want.

• 10:39 AM 0 comments

Politics

I'm wearing one of my Barack Obama t-shirts today. Yes, at work. I'm pretty sure I get to do that. If anyone complains I'll double-check.

My t-shirt says (on the front), "I'm fired up" and (on the back) "He's ready to go" with a picture of the White House. It's red, which I find a bit ironic, since "red state" has come to mean a state that tends to go Republican, rather than Democratic. Prior to the mid-1990s, there was no "standard" method of color-coding maps, with different networks using opposing color schemes, some coding Democratic states in blue and Republican ones in red, and other networks or news outlets coding them in opposite colors.

But since the 2000 election, people have pretty much standardized on blue meaning Democratic, and red meaning Republican. So, again, irony (or conscious decision) for Obama's campaign to sell shirts in red, white, blue, and even green.

I think electing a progressive President is important, but more important, I think, is getting more and better Democrats in at all levels of government. Especially Congress. I read Glenn Greenwald's column yesterday about the calculations that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer appears to be pulling with the Bush Administration's push for letting the telecoms off the hook for caving in on illegal surveillance. If you don't know much about the topic, you really should read Greenwald's article, above. I've been following it for a while and the fact that the Democratic leadership in Congress appears to be so scared of being seen as "soft" on "national security" that they would subvert the rule of law and allow the telecom companies (and, by direct extension, the Bush Administration) to get off without even a slap on the hand is infuriating.

Sadly, Obama seems to be against the proposed bill granting the billion-dollar corporations and the billion-dollar war criminals amnesty... but so far it's just words.

After you've read Greenwald's latest take, you may feel compelled, as I did, to drop some money towards an ad campaign (via ActBlue) to educate and warn people about this dangerous bill. When I gave yesterday afternoon, they had raised around $101,000 - as I write this, it stands at $154,758, with 2,699 contributors. That shows that there are people paying attention. But I don't think it's enough. So I'm asking my 300-400 readers to contribute, if they can, whatever they can. Even if it's $5.

And if I have any conservative or Republican readers (doubtful but possible), let me point out a couple of things. One, the ad that Greenwald et. al. is raising money to buy will be running in Steny Hoyer's district. Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer. Democrats police their own; we don't try to make excuses when our leadership is acting against the interests of the country.

And, two, it doesn't matter to me if it's a Democratic president or a Republican president that has unaccountable power. Neither one is good. No one is above the law, and I (and other Democrats) don't put the party above the country. But, still speaking to my conservative/libertarian/Republican readers, since it's a foregone conclusion that control of the House and the Senate will be remaining in Democratic hands, and I believe that the White House will be occupied by a Democratic president next year... Is this the kind of power you want in the hands of the opposing party? Give some money to help stop it, then, if the answer is "no". • 7:58 AM 0 comments

A ticket I'd consider

I'm pretty sure I won't be voting for the white guy this year... but then again, I just might... If...

• 2:54 PM 0 comments

Don't you wish you were us?

I rode my bike this weekend. And some of the time I was naked.

If I have to explain why, you probably wouldn't get it.

Some events are only able to be experienced, not explained.

I only took a few pics myself.

I'm going to do that every year for the rest of my life, as long as I can ride a bike. Maybe even more often. • 8:41 AM 0 comments

Here's to dad

I'll blog about the party and World Naked Bike Ride later.

First, though: here's to dad.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!



Would you believe this is the only picture in my collection of my dad? I apologize for the grain and general poor quality of it; this was cropped out of a larger picture of other family members, who may kill me if I post them on the internet.

Dad may kill me, too, but hey, it's Father's Day.

The picture was taken on Christmas Day, 2003, in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, in our hotel room. We were all on a family vacation. Dad's doing what he always does; taking lots of pictures.

Hey, maybe him being behind the camera is why I don't have many pictures of him?

I'm off to a barbecue at my sister's house; her husband grills up a mean steak. Maybe I'll try to sneak in some more shots of dad. • 11:50 AM 0 comments

Outside the party

The 2008 World Naked Bike Ride pre-party slowly begins. • 9:45 PM 0 comments

Second year in a row

I'm just now leaving my apartment and heading to the Naked Bike Ride.

I promised my favorite stripper I'd bring back pictures this time. • 8:21 PM 0 comments

Things I learned this week 3

Third in a series.

• One man may or may not be able to make a difference. But one man can make a statement of opposition, draw a line in the sand, and put down a marker for the future to say "at least I was paying attention."


• I really like the idea of selling boiled/filtered water to physicians in the Middle Ages. Y'know, if I ever find myself transported back in time.


• John McCain does not "get" the internet.


• As if I needed a reason to love Scarlett Johanssen or Barack Obama more, here's one more.


• There are days when it seems the best thing for Democrats is for Republicans to be honest.


• Always ride my bike within the law, or be prepared to be Tasered.


• There are some Christians who either take their religion too seriously, or aren't quite up to speed on this whole "parody" thing. It's too difficult to tell sometimes. Seriously? Not just worrying about who will take care of your pets post-Rapture... but coming up with a formula to help decide? No, seriously? That has to be humor. And yet, I just can't tell.


• Kim Kardashian's butt is nearly perfect.

• 6:30 PM 0 comments

My New Bike

I took the long way home today from the shop.

Brand-new 2008 Kona Smoke 2-9.

It's much lighter and more nimble than my old bike.
• 4:09 PM 0 comments

Oceanographers in Ory-gone

My favorite part of this is how Penn basically gives up on pronouncing Oregon correctly and chooses "Wisconsin" instead... and then realizes how little oceanfront there is in Wisconsin... and settles on our fine neighbor to the north, Washington.


• 7:58 PM 0 comments

Wordplay

"Nation, there are seven Eskimo words for 'snow' and all of them also mean 'opportunity.'" - Steven Colbert

Lisa Simpson: "The Chinese use the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity!"
Homer Simpson: "Yes! Crisitunity!" • 8:44 PM 0 comments

Upgrade

In case anyone's wondering, yes, I will likely be buying an iPhone 3G.

I mean, within minutes of the end of the keynote yesterday, I was already asking my friends and family if they wanted to buy my current iPhone. I knew I was getting one even before I knew that the 3G data plan would cost me $10 more a month, and that there were more restrictions on purchase and activation, and that the amount I could sell my old iPhone for would drop to nearly nothing. Of course I would be upgrading. Duh.

But now that the effects of the reality distortion field started to wane, I realized that I could hold off a bit. I need to find out for certain if the lower cost of the iPhone 3G was going to work the way the regular subsidies worked; in other words, is the lower price only available to new contracts, not existing customers? I'd like to see what real-world battery life was like. I'd like to see if 3G speeds were really worth it.

So I will likely wait until later this summer to make my purchase. I won't be an early adopter just yet.

But holy fuck I am so getting one. • 7:59 AM 1 comments

I wonder

I realized late in the day that six years ago today my mother died. Lung cancer.

Closing comments because I'm not asking for sympathy. Just noting it in case anyone wonders why I'm out of sorts.

It's just a low-level, back of the mind kind of nagging sorrow. I really think I'm over it, and yet, here I am, still reminded of it and worrying if it's causing me to be slightly more depressed than usual.

I mean, I already feel depressed; there's very little that brings me joy lately, and I rarely have the energy to undertake any new project, and the projects I do work on (like my diet) just grind on and on and show no sign of improvement or gain, and most often I just want to sit in my house and surf or watch mindless teevee. But then, on top of my normal sadness, which is probably caused by the cold rainy weather this whole entire year, is layered a seasonal feeling of loss that I am apparently fated to feel in every June for the rest of my life.

Cary Tennis, an advice columnist to whom I grant the status of genius, often says that "it will take longer than you think, always." It will take longer than you think to complete the grieving process, to learn to move on after a divorce or bad breakup, to heal your mental wounds from abuse or mental illness. Always, he says.

I understand that, but, c'mon. Six years? Really?

OK. I just know I'm feeling stressed, and sad, and in more of a mind to hide, lately. Where by "lately" I mean "for the past year or so". I'll keep on keepin' on, but, y'know. Fuck this shit. • 8:07 PM

Man

I'm kinda out of words lately.

Sorry. They'll come back.

You can't force the muse, after all. • 10:42 PM 0 comments

No charge

"Kung Fu Panda" is a cute movie. The CGI perfectly captured the expressiveness and body language of star Jack Black, the story is a great synopsis and homage to the basic tropes of chop-socky movies in general, and it helped seeing it with Kevin and his two young sons, in an old-time-y theater in my neighborhood, rather than a concrete movie warehouse out in the 'burbs.

Labels: movies

• 9:23 PM 0 comments

Things I learned this week 2

• There are people who can build a [something] out of [something else] and they rock. In this case, someone built a clock out of an Etch-A-Sketch.


• Derek Powazek has the same trouble finding good iPhone earbuds as I do. So, like John Gruber, I stick with the originals, even though I don't think they sound particularly good to me and they have the annoying habit of falling out. At least I'm not alone.


• Also via John Gruber, there's a documentary on the Doctor of Gonzo Journalism that I simply must see.


• Line Rider is addictive and hilarious. The creator calls it a "toy" rather than a "game" because there's no points and no winning or losing. It's just playing.


• On the intersection of Geek and Breasts many a laugh can be found.


• Cary Tennis writes in a genius-y fashion about figuring out how to figure out what's missing:
  

  What is your reason for seeking a man? It may sound like a dumb question but ... Is it to have children and raise a family? To avoid loneliness? To feel relaxed and confident in your world? To enjoy sex? To demonstrate your value and attractiveness to others? To keep pace with your friends? Perhaps with your therapist you can dwell on these questions long enough to see some specific and detailed answers emerge. This might help you in several ways. For one thing, it can help you see exactly what you are losing when a man goes away. And so it can help you think how to replace those specific things that he was providing. If he was providing sex, for instance, and you miss the sex, then you can set about trying to find more sex. If the ache you feel is loneliness, then perhaps you need the company of others. If you feel wounded or betrayed, then perhaps you can work on that woundedness, exploring it, asking, Is it anger toward him, is it shock at how I have been treated?

  He's talking to a woman who wonders why she can't find a boyfriend who won't hurt her, but the general sense is applicable to a wider situation. If something in one's life is a constant source of pain, then try to find out what the pain is telling you, try to figure out why it's painful, try to figure out what's missing. Realize that if you depend on others to fill in that missing part, you will always be subject to their whims; but if you can find out how to give that to yourself, you'll always have that missing part in your life.
  
  Yeah. I love Cary Tennis.


• Christianity isn't that original - many of its core tenets and ideas were lifted from other religions. Of course, this won't act to dis-confirm Christians' beliefs because... um... just because nothing will.
  
  

• 9:20 AM 2 comments

Chosen

The above picture was apparently selected to be included in an online guidebook called Schmap. I received an email about it earlier in the week. I was suspicious at first (I'm such a skeptic) but realized it's a good thing and approved their use. If and when it finally gets approved I'll post a link to that page. Pretty cool. • 9:35 AM 0 comments

Is it OK to hope now?

I'm starting to love my country again.

• 9:34 AM 0 comments

President (nominee) Barack Obama

I was watching "Jeopardy" on KATU when ABC News cut in to show Sen. Barrack Obama's victory speech.

ABC carried it without interruption... up until Sen. Obama started talking about his policy differences with Sen. John McCain. Then Charlie Gibson started talking over Sen. Obama. Gibson made damned sure that ABC viewers would not hear bad things about Sen. John McCain.

Shameful.

I fumed in anger for a second or two, then flipped over and finished watching on KGW. Gave me goose bumps. After Sen. Obama becomes the President, I'm going to finally enjoy watching Presidential speeches again.

This is the moment, indeed. • 8:00 PM 1 comments

Loss of love

On the surface, "Annie Hall" (which I saw tonight as part of the Independent Film Revival group's series on Directing Dysfunction) and another movie I saw this weekend, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", are about the same basic thing: love and breaking up.

They both feature men who are still at heart boys, and they are both comedies. Both films make use of improvisational dialogue, and both films were written by their male leads. And while I don't know this for certain about the more recent film, I think they both have been created with a great deal of autobiography.

But what a difference 30 years have made. In 1977, Woody Allen's take on male insecurity was a nervous energy. He was constantly touching and grabbing Diane Keaton. He paced, he stuttered, he mocked himself and others. Alvy Singer had an aggressive "come here/go away" dynamic with every woman in the movie; his male friendship, however, with Rob was more uni-directional - Rob was constantly trying to convince Alvy to do something against his nature; move to California and avoid death.

Jason Segel's Peter, on the other hand, plays a more mellow and unaware insecurity. In fact, to my eyes (and this may say more about me than Peter) doesn't seem insecure at all in the beginning of the movie. It's not until later, when he's in the depths of his depression and he encounters the sympathetic, welcoming, and yet tough force of Mila Kunis' Rachel that I began to see how uncertain he was. I will always hear Rachel's encouraging shout of "Whoo! Dracula musical! Yeah!" into an otherwise silent bar whenever I'm afraid of taking a step through the next metaphorical door I encounter. And look how it turned out for Peter.

As far as the comedy goes, the jokes in "Annie Hall" are vaudevillian and fall mostly flat to my ears now. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" has some rather broad and rather coarse humor, too, but it's also capable of much more subtle laughs.

I don't want to turn this into a thesis, though. Just seeing these two movies back to back gave me an opportunity to compare. In the end, I related to the more recent movie far more.

I can't believe "Annie Hall" won an Oscar. Over "Star Wars"? C'mon.

Labels: movies

• 10:08 PM 1 comments

I'm sad

I'm very sad that a movie like "The Visitor", which is a wonderful and melancholy movie about immigration and deportation, could even be made. It's one thing thinking about repressive countries in far-off lands like Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or North Korea, or many others I barely even know about... but to think that a story could be told about small simple people wanting to play their music and live their lives being flattened by a monolithic government just for the crime of jumping a turnstile in the subway... to think that such a story could be told and set in the United States of America staggers me.

I know the movie is fiction, and I know that the filmmakers had a viewpoint and an opinion to express. But I have to admit, uncomfortably, that the story is at least plausible. Probably similar stories play out daily.

The intersection of the hope expressed by an image of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and the anger and fear expressed by images of the World Trade Center... at the center is a fear of brown-skinned people, people who "don't even have an American name".

I refuse to fear. In its place I feel sad, however.

Wake up, sleeping democracy. The world needs hope again.

Labels: movies

• 5:55 PM 0 comments

At least WE liked it

As Tracy and I left the theater after thoroughly enjoying "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", I looked around at the predominantly older, retirement age crowd that still remained and were leaving (we stayed to the very end of the credits) and asked her, "Did it seem like we were the only ones laughing?"

Part of my wonderment was that we had watched the movie in Tigard, which for those of you reading me from far away, is a predmoninantly-white suburb of Portland. Ninety percent of the movies I see, I see in theaters downtown, with a younger (though, this being Portland, still predominantly, but not entirely, white) audience and I expect a more rambunctious response to a movie, especially a comedy like "Forgetting Sarah Marshall".

If I had to choose between Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis, I think my brain asplode.

Labels: movies

• 12:35 PM 0 comments