Hordes Of Kreuser

How Kevin Smith made the top story on CNN.com

2010-02-16T00:29:00.000Z

I'd be willing to bet that bookmakers in Vegas are now laying odds on which "Evening with Kevin Smith" dvd will contain the rant about Southwest Airlines. I'm thinking number 5, depending on how far along they are on producing number 4.

This is not a good thing for Southwest, because Smith is pretty much a self-effacing and honest guy with a pretty rabid fan base. Which means he's not going to sugar coat it ("Dude, I know I'm fat,") and it's going to get a lot of play online. Witness the fact that in the middle of the Winter Olympics it topped CNN's web page.

Probably this won't be a major financial issue for Southwest, but it is going to focus a lot of attention on their fat people removal policy. Plus a fair number of Smith fans are big guys like him, and I'm betting they're going to be avoiding Southwest at all costs in the future.

Some new insanity

2010-02-03T23:56:00.001Z

I posted a little bit ago that I was going to be messing around with the html code on this page to make it a little more to my liking. I'm still going to do that, but I'm going to wait a bit, as I'm going to be doing that exact thing on...my new blog. Yes, I will now have two blogs, this one, and one I will be operating as part of my Digital Media course that I just started today. This new blog (which I'm calling A Bad Move) will focus much more on issues pertaining to the publishing industry and generally be of a nature to try and induce the lecturer to give me a good grade on it at the end of the term. As part of the course I will be messing around with the template, so I figured I'd do it there first where I've got someone to tell me how to fix it when I inevitably screw it up.

So what does this mean for this blog? Well, probably that I won't be posting here quite as much, except when I've got something that wouldn't work on the other blog. I'm going to be doing 2-3 posts a week over there, so we'll see how much energy I've got for posting over here. This blog won't go completely dark (not that I haven't done that before), because I'll eventually lose the other blog at the end of the summer.

You can check it out here. Comments are welcome if you're at all interested in what I'm talking about.

The last time I will mention this.

2010-01-25T04:05:00.000Z

My thoughts on the NFC Championship game:

1. That wasn't pass interference.

2. That wasn't a catch.

3. Childress is a moron.

4. It's been 11 years. I can't believe they did it to me again. I wonder how long it will take to recover this time?

Where I studied today

2010-01-20T17:27:00.000Z

Today, despite what must have been serious misgivings, I was granted access to one of the oldest libraries in the world, the Bodleian. It's the second largest in Britain (after the British Library), and is one of 6 "legal deposit" libraries in the British Isles, which means that it has the right to request a copy of any book printed in the UK or Ireland. The Radcliffe Camera is part of the system, and that's where the four of us who got our cards today went to sit for an hour or so and do some work. It's not open to the public, so it was pretty freaking cool to be able to go in.

Afterward we went and walked around Christ Church College, where the several scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed, including the dining room scenes. All in all, an excellent day in Oxford.

Snow melt

2010-01-20T00:56:00.001Z

So the Great British Snow Emergency of 2010 is now over. The snow all melted inside of two days. Kind of crazy transition-you could tell something like that was about to happen but it still surprised me. But then, I'm used to snow sticking around for months. In unrelated news, I've gone running around Christ Church meadow twice in the last two days, and both the Cherwell and the Isis are almost at flood stage. Also, both were higher today than yesterday, so if they push up another inch or two I'll have to find a new running route, because mine will be underwater.

Changing the topic, I've become unhappy with the physical dimensions of this blog. I've already made one foray into editing the html code to make it wider (ultimately I discarded the changes and decided to try again later), so probably sometime in the next week or so this page may be wider than it is now. Should be exciting.

I just found this article in the New Yorker profiling uber-author Neil Gaiman, which covers his career pretty well and includes some cool facts I didn't know. Also congrats to Gaiman, who announced last Friday on his blog that he and his girlfriend Amanda Palmer (of The Dresden Dolls) are engaged.

Finally, here are a couple of the photos I took of Oxford in the snow. I'll see if I can get a couple of shots of the overflowing Cherwell & Isis for comparison.

Train Times

2010-01-12T14:09:00.001Z

I was a little bored this morning, so when I read this CNN article saying the new Chinese high-speed trains averaged 350kph I wondered what that was in mph. Turns out it's about 218. That got me wondering just how fast you could get from Minneapolis to Chicago in a train going those speeds. According to this site it's 354 miles, so it'd be a little over an hour and a half train ride. But you wouldn't just get a train straight from Minneapolis to Chicago, you'd at least go through Madison. Long story short I'm thinking you could have one of these trains averaging 218mph between Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago and get from one end to the other in about 2 hours (provided you only stop in those cities). Put the terminus of the train in the downtown areas of each city and it probably ends up being faster than flying. Sound good to anyone else?

Lost Supper

2010-01-07T19:55:00.000Z

Holy cow, I love this shot. The final season of Lost starts February 2nd.

Heathrow

2010-01-06T13:17:00.000Z

The worst type of airline delays are when they make you just sit on the tarmac, either before takeoff or after landing. At least when you're in the air you have the sense you're getting somewhere, even if you're just in a holding pattern (mostly because people rarely notice when they're circling). But when you're just sitting there it seems annoying and pointless.

I landed at Heathrow at 10am, and didn't get off the plane until after 10:30. Passport control and customs were easy, but waiting for my checked bag was another half hour or so. Combine that with needing to change terminals to get to my bus, I spent over 2 hours trying to leave Heathrow. I'll let the fact that the bus's first stop was another terminal pass. But that's really a long time to spend trying to leave an airport.

On a bus

2010-01-06T13:05:00.000Z

I'm posting this while taking the bus back from Heathrow to Oxford. One of the cool things about the UK is that they seem to have wifi in most of their buses. This is the first time I've used it, and I have to say it's pretty cool.

After a whirlwind 10 days in MN, where I got to see a lot of people, including a couple I didn't initially expect to be in town, I'm back in the UK. It's clearly been snowing quite a bit here, as all the trees along the road are coated in snow. The roads themselves seem ok, but traffic's going kind of slow.

It's nice to be back and I'm looking forward to seeing people again, but I've already got some things to take care of. First off, I need to get my application for another student loan in. I'm going to need to go grocery shopping pretty quick too. And to top it off, I found out that my left headphone has given out on me, which means I got to listen to my new cds short one headphone, which is not optimal for Led Zeppelin.

I'll see about posting new pics soon, right after I come out of the jet-lag zombie-state.

Interesting Futurama tidbit

2009-12-04T13:55:00.000Z

An interesting note on what Futurama might have been like (from Wikipedia):

At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. After the murder, Futurama's lead character Philip J. Fry was named in Hartman's honor and Billy West took over the role of Brannigan. West later said that he purposefully tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal.

Now that would have been crazy. Newsradio and Futurama are pretty much my two favorite sitcoms, and while I love Billy West's Brannigan, it would have been awesome to see what Hartman would have done with it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T10:45:00.000Z

Happy T-day to everyone! I hope you all have a great time and a great meal. I myself will be very busy today not eating turkey, relaxing and watching football, as I have a lecture, a seminar, a talk to go to (although since it features Phillip Pullman it'll probably be pretty cool), a group meeting for my Design project, and right now I need to got put in some design work before the lecture and seminar so the group meeting goes better.

So for me Thanksgiving Day (observed) will be on Saturday, when a bunch of the people here are getting together for dinner. It will also be my first attempt at cooking a turkey. I really hope I don't screw it up.

Moive Madness

2009-11-19T10:37:00.000Z

I'm always confused by the way international movie releases work. The first time I studied in England, there were of course a bunch of films that had been out in the US for awhile at that point, or had already left theaters. But I did see two movies that hadn't been released yet in the States-and indeed didn't come out until a few months after I got back. I found this to be pretty freaking awesome, as the movies were O Brother, Where Art Thou and Memento, two very cool movies that I got to see before pretty much everybody else (except Erik, of course, because he was there too).

I can report not much has changed in this respect. Up, which I missed in the States, is still out in theaters here, mostly because it didn't get released until October 9th. At the same time I've seen two movies I've seen here that haven't come out yet in the US yet, at least not in wide release. I highly recommend both The Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Mr. Fox is very well done, with a funky stop-motion animation that fits the style of the film. It's immediately recognizable as a Wes Anderson flick, and if you've enjoyed his previous films there's a good chance you'll like this one. I can't remember the Roahl Dahl book all that much, so I didn't have to content with comparing the film to the book, which honestly was kind of nice. All in all very much the sort of movie I was expecting after seen the trailers and Anderson's previous movies. Mr. Fox didn't supplant The Royal Tenenbaums as my favorite Wes Anderson movie, but it's nonetheless quite good.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a little less straightforward of a film. I quite liked it, but I can understand that others might not. Like most Gilliam movies (who, I found out from IMDB, was born in Minneapolis, MN!) it's quirky and weird, but visually awesome and conceptually quite cool. It's also Heath Ledger's last movie, which is initially distracting but it goes away faster than you'd think. His character is replaced during the film by three other actors, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. You might think this makes no sense, but honestly, it really does. In fact, the changes was so seamless plot-wise it felt like the decision to change actors was made based on the script, rather than out of necessity.

I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say I really enjoyed The I of Dr. P. It reminded me most of Mirrormask, albeit with a more tangled bunch of characters dealing with more mysterious (and adult) problems. However, I suggest giving it a try if you get the chance...at Christmas when it actually goes into limited release in the US. It's already out of the Oxford theaters. Hmm, maybe I'll get the chance to see it again.

More Iranian News

2009-11-13T19:18:00.000Z

There's a very good article in The Times about Arash, the Iranian guy who did my course last year, then got caught up in the post-election protests and now can't go home. I was just talking to one of the Professors on my course, and they mentioned how much they're hoping he'll get a job soon.

You can check it out here.

Lion vs Deer

2009-11-09T15:52:00.000Z

For some reason, a young deer decided to literally jump into the lion's den at the National Zoo in DC. Everyone on the video is rooting for the deer-is it wrong that I'm rooting for the lion? Also, much like the Packers Offensive line in the Metrodome, the lion seems distracted by all the cheering.

Who to call

2009-11-02T12:29:00.004Z

Happy belated Halloween to everyone. I hope you all had fun-I certainly did. Just a quick post with a very nice cover of a classic song. More newsy-type posts soon, as I ramp up my procrastination in the face of my marketing test on Wednesday.

Publishing in Iran

2009-10-13T21:29:00.002+01:00

Tonight my program had a seminar entitled Publishing in Iran. It was a presentation given by a former student (an Iranian), who had gone through the course last year. He had been one of three former students who had given a short speech on the first day of our induction on what to expect over the course of the year. He gave a very interesting talk on the Iranian publishing industry, the censorship the government imposes on the industry and how they implement it, and the state of copyright issues in Iran (officially there aren't any, because Iran hasn't signed any of the international copyright treaties). It was a very interesting talk.

He also mentioned that he had been in Iran during the protests after the presidential elections a few months ago. Drinks were served after the talk (which was odd-usually we have drinks before a talk), and I got the chance to ask him what it was like being in Tehran during the protests. It was then that I found out that he had been the doctor (before entering publishing he had studied medicine) who had been standing next to Neda when she was shot and the one who subsequently tried (unsuccessfully) to save her life. Needless to say, I was floored. I paid quite a bit of attention to the Iranian election and subsequent protests, and Neda's death was the most significant event of the demonstrations, other than the obviously fixed election results themselves. I asked him a few more questions about what he thought about the post-election state of Iran, and the feeling in the country during the protests, but the fact that he was involved in such a pivotal moment kind of threw me off my game. An extremely powerful revelation.

Youtube links are here, here and here to give this some context, in case you don't know what I'm talking about. In the first link, Arash is the guy on the right in the white shirt. Wow.

The Pitchforker's Pride is a Fallacy

2009-10-13T20:53:00.003+01:00

At 1:30am on Sunday morning, while I was doing some homework (I know), I happened to discover that there was a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book coming out. The next day. In London, at an event called Hitchcon '09. The book, since Douglas Adams had died in 2001 (one of the saddest days of my life), had been written by Eoin Colfer, with the approval of Adams' widow and publisher. H2G2 was a serious influence on my life, and I knew that I had to go to London the next morning to get the next book. Unfortunately, because I am a lazy bastard (well, technically just lazy), I missed the one panel discussion I really wanted to see, which was a discussion about Douglas by people who had known him. So my day wound up being me buying the new novel, wandering around looking at the various paraphernalia they had laid out, watching a bit of the BBC H2G2 tv show they had running on a loop, going out to get some lunch, and then coming back to have my book signed by Colfer before I returned to Oxford. Altogether an amazing day.

I finished reading the book (And Another Thing...) Monday afternoon, and I can tell you it's good. Unfortunately for all of us, Adams was fantastic. Superb. Amazing. Whatever term you want to use to describe him, he was a step (or several) above good. Colfer has done a fine job with the characters, with the universe, and with the plot (in true Adams' fashion, it makes little or no sense). What Colfer cannot sustain is Adams' brilliance of phrasing, of putting things in such a way that is both unexpected yet perfect. This is not Colfer's fault-he actually achieves this at least a couple of points in the book, but can't sustain it like Adams.

That said, this book is worth the read. Especially if, like me (and Adams, as quoted in The Salmon of Doubt), you've always felt that Mostly Harmless is an uncharacteristically and undeservedly bleak end to the H2G2 series. The characters all return (except Marvin, who's death makes the end of So Long, and Thanks... the best of all the H2G2 novels), and Colfer does an excellent job of name dropping that dedicated fans will enjoy. Things are decidedly more upbeat, and even certain death is faced with the knowledge that things will turn out ok.

I was thrilled to learn about the book, and very happy to meet the author and get it signed. It's just that (without offense to Eoin Colfer), I wish it had been Adams doing the signing.

Views of Oxford from South Park

2009-10-06T12:26:00.002+01:00

Yes. That's it's name.

MNF

2009-10-05T17:27:00.001+01:00

I really, really wish I could be back in MN for this game. Not that I'm not enjoying myself in Oxford, but damn, this should be epic.

Why I'll Miss the Dome

2009-10-02T19:19:00.002+01:00

If you're a Minnesotan baseball fan, you know why the Dome has to go. It's a football field. The sightlines were never meant for baseball. The concourses are too small, the bathrooms are too small, and you have to pee in a trough. But I'm going to miss the Dome. First all, it was home to the only two Minnesota sports championships of the modern age (i.e. not counting the Minneapolis Lakers), the '87 and '91 Twins, one of which ('91) is rated, if not the greatest, then among the greatest World Series ever played. I can't imagine a pair of more dramatic games than game 6 and 7. This was where Puckett and Hrbek (my favorite Twin) played. This is where a fly ball went up but never came down, where David Ortiz (Red Sox/steroids version) hit a massive should-have-been home run that hit a speaker and bounced back into play. This is where a capacity crowd welcomed the '87 Twins back home after defeating the much-favored Tigers in the ALCS. This where Kirby said goodbye, and we said goodbye to Kirby. And this is where, after the last game of the 2006 regular season, the most amazing regular season I've ever seen, I watched the Tigers lose and the Twins clinch the division.

But more than all those moments, the Dome was the ultimate home field advantage. We knew how to take advantage of it and everyone else had to deal. Even after so many years, you could always count on an opposing outfielder losing a ball in the roof several times a season. Back when the field was as hard as a rock, you could bet on the visitors playing bounces wrong. The Baggy in right is tricky is you don't know what you're doing. Add it all up and you get a home field advantage unmatched anywhere else in baseball. Sure, sometimes it cost us too (coughLewFordcough), but it always cost them more.

I'm psyched about the new stadium next year. While I worked downtown over the last year, I would take my lunch break and walk down and look at the progress at least once a week. From everything I've seen and heard, it's going to be fantastic. But it's going to take a while for it to be home. Talk to me after Mauer and Morneau have a couple of world championships under their belts.

An Important Ability

2009-09-30T21:26:00.002+01:00

With two days of class under my belt, my favorite moment so far came during my first Editorial Management lecture. The professors had asked us to list attributes that a successful editor would have. After things like "adaptability" and "patience," one of the profs said (half under his breath) "drinking." The prof who was leading the lecture picked up on this, and said yes, the ability to hold your liquor is a good ability for editors to have. So I figure I've got at least one of them.

And Here We Go

2009-09-28T23:05:00.002+01:00

Tomorrow I have the first class of my master's course. It's called Editorial Management, which should be interesting. I really have no idea what to expect-I don't know what we're going to be doing, I don't know how the class will be run, and I'm not entirely sure where we're meeting (well, maybe I have some idea). In any case, it should be exciting.

Over the last week I've tried to get things set up in terms of my living space, my registration with the University, and my ability to quickly pick up accents-and not just English. There are slightly over 80 students in my program, and there's a very strong international contingent. So I'm hanging out with people from all over, which is extremely cool.

I've also spent some time walking around the centre of Oxford (I keep calling it downtown, but that's kind of inaccurate), and I'm slowly getting to know my way around in general. So far things have gone pretty well, but I'm looking forward to getting into the actual course itself. I've already had my first project assignment (looking at bookstores) and my first reading assignment (this article on the changing landscape of sales and marketing in the entertainment industry). I'll have class on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, along with Friday mornings, with various additional things on Wednesday mornings. Altogether not too bad of a schedule. We'll see how it goes.

Photos!

2009-09-23T00:47:00.005+01:00

I'm now online here in Oxford, so, as promised, some photos.

From the Lake District

2009-09-16T13:54:00.002+01:00

I'm currently in the Lake District wrapping up a few days of hiking, getting ready to hopefully return to London on Friday in advance of heading out to Oxford on Saturday, when I can finally give up my hobo-like wanderings and officially move into my room at Brookes. However, it's been an awesome few days, which will be capped off tomorrow by cruising around Windermere. That's right-I'll be on a boat.

Pictures will come later, but I kicked off the week in high gear by doing a 10 mile circuit hike from Grasmere. I expected it to kick my ass a bit, and it did. Of course, that's partially because I was a moron and unintentionally went bushwacking at the beginning and end of the hike, thus making the whole thing a lot more tiring and time-consuming than it had to be. Of course, after hiking that massive loop I had to hike another two miles to the hostel I was staying at, since the two hostels in Grasmere were both booked full and I had to go to Langdale to find one with room. Fortunately, dinner was in between the two, which proved to be pretty necessary since all I had had to eat to that point in the day were two cliff bars. Also, only having one nalgene of water for a 10 mile hike is pushing it. It can be done, but damn was I thirsty when I finally got back into town.

Yesterday was therefore a bit easier-a nice walk around Grasmere and Rydal Water, with some stops at Rydal Hall (which has some kicking formal gardens) and Dove Cottage (where Wordsworth lived for 8 years). Probably about 6 miles all told, but much less climbing, and still some terrific views. Today was a travel day, as I hiked from Langdale over Loughrig Fell to Ambleside, where I'm staying for the next two nights. So all told, a very nice couple of days. Pictures will be up when I am ensconded in my Brookes residence with my own computer.

From London

2009-09-12T18:32:00.003+01:00

10 thoughts from my initial travels over the last couple days:

1. Iceland needs more frequent buses from Keflavik to Reykjavik.
2. Sitting in an airport for 10 hours kind of bites, at least after your ipod loses all its juice.
3. Jet lag sucks.
4. I keep running into people-when I keep right, I run into Brits who are trying to keep left. When I remember to keep left, I run into other tourists.
5. London is crowded on Saturdays.
6. London theaters are crowded on Saturdays. At least the ones I want to go to.
7. The Great Hall at the British Museum is astounding.
8. Reading Neverwhere while in London is slighly unnerving.
9. British keyboards are weird.
10. Pubs=Good.

I leave tomorrow for the Lake District, where I have no reservations and no one expecting me. Should be interesting.

Sweet Relief

2009-09-01T05:18:00.002+01:00

The British government instituted new rules for applying for visas this year, which meant that I had to show proof, in the form of bank statements (essentially), that I had the funds necessary to study in England. Because of this, I was a little later than I would have liked in getting my visa application submitted. Since my plane tickets say I'm leaving next week, I was getting a little bit nervous that I still didn't have my passport back, since you have to send it in as part of the visa application. But today I got an email from the British Consulate, saying that my visa had been approved and my passport (with the visa in it) is winging its way back to me even as I read. Then there was a giant woosh as I exhaled and 4 of the 6 knots in my back relaxed. Looks like I'm going to leave for Oxford on time.

An end and a beginning

2009-08-29T04:14:00.002+01:00

Today was my last day at Rust Consulting, the place I've been working since the end of October. I started as a temp, and then a couple of months ago they decided they liked me enough to hire me on as a regular employee. It was a nice job-I got to work downtown, which meant I got to walk around the skyway system everyday and familiarize myself with a part of Minneapolis I didn't know that well. But the best part was the people-I don't know that I met anyone at Rust that I didn't like-coworker or superior. So it was a little sad to leave. Not really sad, mind you, since I'm incredibly excited for my program to start and psyched to be returning to England, but I am going to miss the people I worked with.

So that was today. Since getting home my time has been entirely dedicated to getting my new laptop up and running. It's a Dell Studio XPS, and it's shiny and very cool. I haven't transfered any of my personal files yet, but I have downloaded several of the programs I use every day (chrome, itunes, skype) and started to configure things to my liking. So in the space of one day I've left my job and received what's going to become my link to the rest of the world. Exciting stuff.

Damn Damn Damn

2009-08-26T04:08:00.003+01:00

I'm a big fan of Kevin Smith's movies. Hell, I even thought Jersey Girl was ok. And I also love the Evening with Kevin Smith dvds that have come out over the last few years. Not only do they contain some absolutely hilarious stories (the Superman story and the Prince story from the first dvd are classic), but Smith is also more open and honest about himself and his relationships than pretty much anyone I've ever seen in a similar senario. Intimate details about his sex life with his wife? Done. Horriffic personal health details? No problem. And of course he lampoons himself left and right (albeit in front of an adoring audience). He's always funny, always intelligent and almost always interesting.

So naturally when I saw his name on the marquee of the State Theater, I was psyched. Until, that is, I noticed the date that he'll be here: September 17th, a week after I leave for England. Suck.

Although I did just discover he'll be in London on the 10th of October. Hmmm...

One Short Post on Farvemas

2009-08-19T04:12:00.002+01:00

In case you've been knocked by rampaging beavers for the last 12 hours or so, you know that Brett Farve is a Viking. As someone who has long wanted him to make up his damn mind already, I'm glad it's over, in the sense that he's now playing for the team. Honestly I don't know how things will work out (or how much of it I'll get to see in England), but I thought this was particularly insightful, from Souhan's column in the Strib:

Favre is a football Elvis. We just don't know yet whether he's going to be like young, dynamic Elvis or old, decrepit Elvis.

One thing's for sure-the Vikes will not have a boring season. Nor will they lack national media attention, as ESPN will most likely be doing its evening reports from Farve's locker from now until February.

A New Beginning

2009-08-13T05:44:00.002+01:00

As you may or may not have heard, in September I'll be starting a graduate program at Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, England. The program will last a year, and I'll come out with an MA in Publishing. I'm extremely excited about returning to England, where I studied for four months during my junior year at Carleton. While I'm over there, I'm going to start blogging again and use it as a forum for people to keep up with what I'm doing. I'll still get in my thoughts about issues, but many posts will be more like short updates on my life in general.

So while I'm still in the states I'm going to try and get back on the blogging horse (soon to be aided by the purchase of my very first laptop). So I thought I'd start by linking to this article in the Star Tribune, which takes a shot at one of the craziest politicians in the country, MN's own Michelle Bachmann, who's been working overtime since the election to establish her insanity bona fides. Now it seems her own family is out to get her. I'd love to see a comment on this, but somehow I don't think it's going to happen.

Walker, Texas President

2009-03-11T23:52:00.002Z

Ahh, Chuck Norris. You brought us the supreme ridiculousity of Walker, Texas Ranger. Now you've brought us this: an offer to run for President of Texas once it secedes from the union, which is apparently going to happen "sooner than we think." I'm sorry, but did we think it was going to happen at all? Was Texas seceding on the schedule somewhere? And did Norris just call for the creation of "cells" around the country dedicated to breaking up the US?

Maybe this is what this Russian dude keeps talking about when he says the US will break up in 2010. Which would mean that Chuck Norris is in bed with the Russians. Walker would be furious.

WTF

2008-12-09T03:24:00.002Z

I have no idea what this movie is, or is about. But I love the trailer. Also, if I went to India (which I hope to do one day), would I see a big stone arch that said "India" welcoming me? Because that would be awesome.

Giving a Man a Crumb

2008-12-03T06:11:00.003Z

Ok ABC, here's the deal: Lost is over a month away from coming back. That's a long time from now. I've got two holidays, two plane flights, one wedding, one tequila party, and one sister coming home and then leaving to go back to Japan again before I get to see the first episode on January 21st. I mean, that's next freaking year, man! Think about it this way: Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President before Lost premieres. Anyway ABC, I really think you should knock off the teasing. It's really not very nice. Just let us try and forget all about it until after New Year's, then when we start getting psyched about it it won't be so far away. Thanks for listening.

TBA 2008

2008-11-28T06:31:00.004Z

My lack of posting since the election has had a little to do with the fact that I'm working every day, but more to do with my decision to take all the footage I shot of TBA this year and cut it together into a short retrospective. I'd never done anything like this before, and it took me a little while to figure out what I was doing. Nevertheless, I'm pleased with the result. I've posted it here so you see for yourself the yahoos I play with. Carleton people will recognize Java Fortran, Dr. Evil, Pat Smith and myself (although I'm only in two scenes, since I was taping the rest of the time). Anyone who wants to watch this without straining their eyes can get in touch with me, and I'll see if I can get them the file on cd or dvd.

O Freaking Bama

2008-11-05T06:17:00.003Z

I realized it about 30 minutes after Ohio was announced for Obama by CNN. At the time, I was arguing the merits of Obama v. McCain with a friend of my sister's, so I only took time to turn to the TV, yell YES! at the top of my lungs, and then go back to my point. A half hour later, I realized that Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania had all been called for Obama, and he was sitting at 207 electoral votes before CA, OR, WA and HI were counted. When I took the time to add them up (no small feat considering the booze I had consumed), I realized that, barring the most insane of miracles, Obama had just become the President-Elect.

Holy S#*t.

I can't believe it. In 2004 I wanted to be able to vote for this man, and the fact that he's actually going to be the next President blows my mind. The fact that his grandmother died a day before being able to see this must tear at his heart.

I can't remember exactly what the line from his speech was, but I believe it was something along the lines of "a new day has dawned in American leadership." For America, and for the world, I have hope that Obama will deliver on his promise. Today, America decided to act on that hope. Go Obama.

Holy Crap

2008-11-05T03:11:00.001Z

He's going to f#$*ing win.

My prediction

2008-11-04T06:01:00.009Z

Let there be gloating or mocking.

Obama by 10 points nationally, 350+ in the electoral college.
Franken wins the MN senate seat by 2 points. The Dems get 58 seats, enabling them to burn Joe Lieberman, and not in effigy.

Man, I hope I'm right.

Election Eve

2008-11-04T03:43:00.002Z

I have several posts I want to get to, including a review of Kevin Smith's new film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and an account of the Blues Traveler concert I went to last night. But I feel I should address the moment we find ourselves at right now.

No one knows the future, and those who guess are wrong much more often then they're right. But I find it hard to shake the feeling that my vote tomorrow may be the most imporant one I'll ever cast. This is far from certain: just about everything is far from certain right now. The economic, military and diplomatic challenges that face the country in general and the next president in particular are staggering-probably the worst since FDR died and Harry Truman took office. Truman met his challenges by combining common sense with an extraordinary dedication to getting the correct information, either by learning it himself or by getting the advice of people he trusted. It is perhaps this that gives me so much confidence in Obama: that he will make his choices based on the best information available and that he will listen to dissenting opinions and take them into account. Neither Obama nor McCain will be able to deliver everything they've promised during the campaign, but no president ever does. The next president will face ridiculous challenges. I'm not sure McCain is up to the task. I believe Obama is. Do I know he is? No. No one does. But I do believe it. Go vote.

You can read The Economist's endorsement of Obama here.

You can read Andrew Sullivan's final pre-election statement here.

The Youtube Election

2008-10-29T04:01:00.003Z

With voting (or the end of voting) only a week away, and SNL, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and every other comic about to lose their free-comedy meal ticket, I thought I would post my favorite videos from this election season. I'm not including actual speeches, otherwise Obama's More Perfect Union Speech would be in here, but instead videos that I thought were alternately awesome, hilarious, touching or disturbing.

(Also, I think that if you deconstruct the Hilary For You and Me video you'll come up with a fairly comprehensive picture of why she lost the primary.)

Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Awesome

2008-10-15T21:52:00.001+01:00

See, makers of 17/20ths of the commercials out there? Being good and funny while getting your point across isn't so hard.

Martin chimes in

2008-10-15T18:57:00.002+01:00

Roland Martin takes a solid shot at Palin for talking a lot of trash without confronting any tough questions of her own. Martin brings up her most egregious statement, that the report on troopergate cleared her of any legal or ethical wrongdoing. Pay attention, now, Sarah: the report cleared you of legal wrongdoing, but stated that you violated the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. I could be insane, but that's pretty much the definition of ethical wrongdoing.

Time's analysis of the troopergate report, which delves into the report in more detail, can be found here.

Wackjobs

2008-10-15T18:48:00.002+01:00

I've never really clips from al Jazeera before, but this is pretty well done, in the sense that if you watch it you get the sense that America is populated by a bunch of dumb, ignorant hicks. I can't believe I share a country with these people.

I have to give major props to the guys waving the Obama signs along the road to the rally. Given the makeup of that crowd, I don't know if I'd have the courage to do that.

I also need to give credit to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, since that's where I saw this. It's an excellent site, and he posts a lot of interesting political coverage.

Electoral

2008-10-15T00:16:00.003+01:00

First let me say I think the Electoral College is outdated and should be abolished, especially in the wake of what happened in 2000. However, I'm not surprised that it hasn't been, nor am I surprised at the lack of movement in that direction. Earlier this summer I read an article on the possibility of McCain winning the college but Obama winning the popular vote-and not by a little, like Gore did in '00, but by several million. At the time is wasn't hard to imagine: Obama winning big in the states he took and losing only by a little in the states he lost. The article quoted an anonymous campaign (McCain's, I think) source as saying that the American public could take an election like that (meaning 2000) once every hundred years, but not twice in eight. I agreed at the time, and I still do, but it's starting to look more and more like that won't happen.

On and off for the past week or two I've been fiddling with CNN's Electoral Map Calculator. It's pretty cool-it let's you assign the states to either candidate, and starts it out based one what their current poll numbers show: safe Obama/McCain, leaning Obama/McCain, or tossup. Before the market blew up I thought there were four possibilities: Obama wins big, Obama wins small, McCain wins small, or a tie, with Obama winning small being the most likely possibility. But over the last couple of weeks Obama winning with an electorally significant margin has become a greater possibility. While there's a decent bit of time left yet, and victory is by no means assured, the math is starting to look imposing for McCain.

CNN's map (again, guided by their current poll numbers) has 264 electoral votes safe or leaning Obama. This includes Maine, who gives 2 votes to the statewide winner, and then one each to the winner of the two congressional districts. I've heard McCain has a shot at one of the district votes (the 2nd, I think), so let's say 263 for Obama. This includes the western seaboard and Hawaii, NM, MN, IA, WI, MI, IL and everything north of DC (including PA). This is hardly an optimistic projection, and it means all Obama would have to do to win is take OH, FL, VA, CO, NC, IN or MO. CNN lists all of these at tossups, but you can get more detail from pollster on each one of those key races. I would be shocked if Obama didn't come away with at least one.

So the question starts becoming how many electoral votes can Obama get? Fivethirtyeight.com lists the most common Obama totals as 375, 380,383, 338 and 381. Personally, when I go through the map I end up coming out somewhere in the 330s. There's one thing in the back of my mind, though. There's been a lot of talk recently about the Bradley effect, which basically is the fear that people are saying they're going to vote for Obama out of fear of appearing racist. The race that keeps coming back to me, however, is the MN gubernatorial race in 1998, when Jesse Ventura won a three-way race because of his ability to get non-traditional voters to the polls. This meant that going into election day, polls of likely voters that had been put in the field hadn't given him much of a chance. Now, I have no idea if or how the 2008 national polls take likely vs non-likely voter into account. But since Obama's candidacy, backed by an excellent organization, turned a lot of first-time voters out to the polls in the primary, it's a good bet that they'll do so in the general (something backed up by the significant new voter registration numbers that have started to come out across the country). If this gives his election-day numbers an unexpected bump, we could see something even more remarkable than anyone expects.

"More fun than Shark Week!"

2008-10-13T19:14:00.002+01:00

I've liked Nathan Fillion ever since I saw the first episode of Firefly, so I'm pretty psyched about this new cop show that's coming out on ABC. Granted, it looks a little like Bones, but since Fillion's last show got canned before I could start watching it, I'm hoping this one is good enough to hang around. It certainly looks like it.

RS article

2008-10-13T19:05:00.002+01:00

If you have 15-20 minutes, take some time and read this article about McCain that's coming out in the latest Rolling Stone. It's long-10 web pages-but it's in-depth and an important look at McCain's behavior during his life. Essentially it's closer look at the biographical story the GOP has made so much of during the campaign. It's a damning article, but well-supported and thoroughly researched. I wasn't voting for McCain before, so it didn't change my vote, but it did change my opinion of him as a public servant. I recommend reading it.

Scary as hell

2008-10-13T18:20:00.002+01:00

If you've been paying any attention to election news over the last week, you've heard about some of the stuff McCain supporters have been shouting during his (and Palin's) rallies. Someone will wait for him to pause, then shout "terrorist", "traitor", "off with his head", and other completely insane comments. If you need to see some of the wackjobs I'm talking about, you can check out this, this and this.

For me, the scary part was that the last clip was from a town hall meeting that McCain held in Lakeville, MN, just a few miles north of Carleton, where I went to college. The crazies have invaded my own state. Damn it. Not only that, but this Star Tribune article quoted the Obama-is-an-Arab lady as saying after the meeting

"You can't trust Barack Hussein Obama because he is a Muslim and a terrorist."

Now, I'm a big Obama guy. I have no problem with people supporting McCain, but my hope would be that they do so because of some policy stance he takes or some conception of his leadership skills, despite the fact that I may disagree with them about said policies or skills. However, I am seriously disturbed by these morons who are so willfully ignorant that they believe Obama is an Arab, a Muslim, a terrorist or whatever other totally false, loony charges they level against him. And now, on election day, my vote for Obama will be cancelled out by this crazy woman's vote for McCain. My only hope is that her inability to discern truth from fiction will cause her to spend election day hiding in a field after hearing a rebroadcast of War of the Worlds.

Skyscraper times a billion

2008-10-10T22:31:00.003+01:00

I don't know how many man-made objects can be seen from space, mostly because I've never been there. I'm pretty sure the Great Wall of China is the only one, because the other possibilities have involved someone calling the person who said it an idiot. But I'm pretty sure that this could be seen from space, since it would actually go from earth to space. If they could pull this off it would probably be one of the greatest feats of human engineering of all time, and just the possibility of seeing it happen in our lifetimes is kinda cool.

Branagh's next project

2008-09-30T05:42:00.002+01:00

According to this Variety story, Kenneth Branagh is in negotiations to direct Marvel Studio's Thor, which is set for 2010. Presumably the film will introduce the character and set him up for The Avengers, which is due out a year later.

I'm cautiously psyched about this choice. Yes, Branagh hasn't flexed his action chops in awhile, but neither had Bryan Singer before he did X-Men. Branagh has talent. How it will translate to this material is a question, but I'm feeling pretty good about my belief that he won't make a crappy movie.

Woohoo!

2008-09-29T16:48:00.004+01:00

I've been living and dying (mostly dying) with the Twins over the past week as they try to make the playoffs. But in the fantasy baseball world the season ended yesterday, and I pulled out a 1st place finish in both of my head-to-head leagues, despite finishing 4th and 5th in the regular season. So no matter what happens in reality, and least I have those two fantasy victories. Now if I could just figure out how to win a roto league...

Newman

2008-09-29T06:17:00.002+01:00

I like movies, but I can't claim to be a film buff. I can't walk you down Newman's imdb page and discuss point-for-point the finer aspects of his lesser-known roles. I've only seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once, I've seen most of Cool Hand Luke but not all of it (and on tv, no less), and I even haven't ever really sat down and watched Slapshot. But after hearing that he died Friday after battling cancer, I started thinking about some of the films I had seen him in. I enjoyed Butch Cassidy the one time I saw it. The Sting is awesome, and probably responsible for my love of the artfully concealed late reveal. The Hudsucker Proxy is my favorite Cohen Bros. movie, due in no small part to Sidney J. Mussburger. And Road to Perdition, his last physical movie role, is a fantastic and massively overlooked film. Newman is notable in all of these films because he stands out, because his character stays with you after the credits. He doesn't steal his scenes, either-his performance make the whole movie better. Obviously he hadn't done a film since '02, and his health made it unlikely that he'd have done any new major films. But it still sucks to lose someone that good.

Debate

2008-09-29T00:38:00.002+01:00

I was at the Twins game on Friday night, so I didn't see any of the debate. I've read a lot of reaction to it to see how it played, but this is probably the most intelligent analysis about what exactly debates accomplish these days.

Wow.

2008-09-26T17:10:00.001+01:00

Why do some people still think Palin for VP was a good idea?

Why Wait?

2008-09-25T00:13:00.002+01:00

More and more, the internet is where I'm getting my TV from these days. Take the last three days. Monday I bought the season premiere of House from Amazon Unbox. Yesterday I caught up on the summer finale of Burn Notice and the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother, both of which I had missed when they aired. Then today I happen upon the news that the season premiere of Chuck, which will air next Monday, is already online and ready to watch. So I did. Not only is this freaking awesome, but three of the four were free, and those had less commercials than an episode that was traditionally broadcast.

Now that's just good stuff.

Chicago Heavyweights

2008-09-09T17:27:00.003+01:00

Here are some photos from this past weekend, which I spent in/outside of Chicago playing in a frisbee tournament. I apparently have the tendancy to have funny expressions on my face when I'm playing, which I didn't realize until I looked back at some of the shots taken of me while playing ultimate. In any case, it was an excellent time. The amazing view is courtesy of Java's aunt, who was nice enough to let five of us occupy her 18th floor condo just north of downtown. I also highly recommend Karyn's Cooked, a vegan-only (or mostly, I'm not sure) restaurant that I have now eaten at twice. It's quite good.

Why I love the Daily Show

2008-09-04T21:42:00.002+01:00

You won't see this on any network or cable news show. But you should. Because this is what's wrong with politics. Is there any way someone can show these people a tape of this and force them to answer for their idiocy?

Daily Show in St. Paul

2008-09-02T18:08:00.002+01:00

I didn't know the Daily Show was coming to St. Paul early enough to get tickets. Damn. At least I still get to watch it.

In any case, check out this billboard that the Daily Show set up to welcome people to the RNC. Now that's humor.

Backfire

2008-08-30T07:30:00.002+01:00

Another post by Sullivan with an interesting look at how the Palin pick could backfire with some of the people McCain was trying to court.

Obama=Palin?

2008-08-30T07:12:00.002+01:00

Sullivan makes an excellent point here: comparing Obama to Palin is, at this point, ridiculous. On paper it might work, depending on how you equate her "executive" experience with Obama's legislative experience. But you'd have to ignore two things: First, the fact that since being elected to the Senate (and even before then), Obama has engaged the major issues the country is facing on the national stage. Where are Palin's major policy addresses on...well, anything? From what I've seen so far, she hasn't engaged any foreign policy issues in any meaningful way.

The second thing you'd need to ignore is the last 18 months, that is, Obama's campaign for president. The way he's conducted himself during the primary and the way his team dismantled the Clintons. You want executive experience? Running what may be the smoothest campaign in modern politics and defeating an entrenched opponent with almost every initial advantage takes serious leadership ability. I'm not saying that Palin couldn't have some serious chops (although I'd be surprised if she had anything close to Obama's level of ability), but at this point she's an unknown. Even Obama had four years in DC and some of the best people in the business on his team to get him to this point. And by most accounts it still took him several debates to get to the point where he could compete with Hilary. Palin has the Everest of learning curves ahead of her right now.

Who?

2008-08-29T18:27:00.002+01:00

McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP clearly indicates a desire to gain the vote of my friend Java, who grew up in Alaska and who worked on a commercial fishing boat for two summers (Palin's husband is/was a commercial fisherman). I think that's really the only vote he was looking to pick up here.

That's not true, of course. McCain clearly wanted to accomplish three things with this pick: First, mollify the right. Palin (reportedly) has solid conservative credentials, both socially and economically. Second, he wanted to cement his own position as a maverick. Palin is definitely a non-traditional pick that gives the Republican ticket its own claim on history (but only if they win). Third, McCain wanted to go after disgruntled Hilary voters. Pawlently and Romney don't help McCain with two of those three.

It's a risky move. McCain has essentially sacrificed his ability to make the experience argument against Obama by nominating someone who's younger and has less foreign policy experience. She could get destroyed by Biden in the debates. And I don't buy the argument I heard on CNN about injecting energy and excitement into the convention next week. Curiosity I buy, but not excitement. She's also under investigation for the firing of an official who refused to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. I have to assume that the McCain vetters looked into that enough to be satisfied that there's nothing actionable there, but the possibility remains of the press corps digging up something on her.

It could pay off, of course. It gives the ticket more outside-the-beltway cred to push the change message, and after watching her speech this morning it's obvious the campaign was looking for her to play the family card. It's kind of funny (but makes a certain amount of sense) that the candidates essentially picked their own party's version of their opponents as running mates.

Overall it seems like McCain has decided the experience argument wouldn't work, and has decided to change the game a bit. Whether or not it works depends on how effective Palin is at bringing in the support McCain needs from her.

Obama Accepts

2008-08-29T18:07:00.003+01:00

According to the yahoo pundits, who first critiqued Michelle Obama's speech on Monday for not attacking McCain enough then backtracked and called it an excellent set up for the rest of the week, Obama's acceptance speech last night had to accomplish about 18,000 different things, many of them contradictory. By my estimation, he was able to get almost all of them done (almost-according to one of the idiots, the speech was too long. ugh.).

In any case, I thought he did a fantastic job defining himself, his policies and the way he intends to run his campaign. It wasn't quite as inspiring as the "Yes We Can" speech after New Hampshire, or as historic as the "More Perfect Union" speech in the middle of the Rev. Wright fiasco. But it balanced inspiration with substance, drew a line between attacking policies and attacking the candidate, and laid out a reasonable, bi-partisan approach to some of the biggest cultural problems in the country. The section toward the end when Obama spoke about having differences on abortion, gun control and gay rights but still making progress on the issues was ridiculously good. I heard someone comment on both Clintons' ability to deliver big-game speeches. Obama's performance last night cements his reputation as the best big-game speaker in the business.

Analysis

2008-06-08T05:52:00.001+01:00

An excellent look at Hillary's campaign, and why Obama won.

Wanted

2008-06-08T05:30:00.003+01:00

I've seen the trailers for Wanted for awhile now, and they looked pretty cool. Although I had heard about the comic series, I hadn't read it. So last Friday I picked up the trade paperback so I could read it before the movie. And after finishing it earlier today, I can safely conclude that the movie will be very, very different from the comic. Not necessarily in plot, but in particulars. In the comics, the plot revolves around a boring, everyday loser whose father, who he's never known, dies. But his father, who was part of a Fraternity of supervillians who killed all the superheroes in 1986 and now secretly run the world, left him a ton of money and a genetic legacy of being able to kill just about anything. However, to collect his inheritance, this kid must become part of the Fraternity, which means he gets to create a trail of rape, murder and mayhem wherever and whenever he wants. Essentially, Wanted takes place in a universe where the bad guys won. And it means they get to indulge in every sick, twisted fantasy they want with repercussions.

I enjoyed the comic quite a bit, and I'm guessing the movie plot will have many of the same elements. But I'm going to go ahead a guess that Hollywood will change the edgier aspects of the comic into something a little more palatable for people. We'll see how well it works-the superhero/supervillian dynamic is kind of what gives the comic its backbone. That and the massive amounts of unPC violence and swearing. I'm now slightly skeptical about the movie.

25'

2008-06-08T04:55:00.005+01:00

After getting back from the Boundary Waters on Monday night, the first thing I did was to pick up the paper and see what had happened with Puerto Rico and Florigan in the Democratic primary. I was amazed to find out that Obama would be speaking at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul after the end of the primaries on Tuesday, especially since at that point he would have most likely captured the nomination. Being a massive Obama fan since I watched his speech at the 2004 convention I knew I had to go. So at about 3:30 the next day, I headed to St. Paul to stand in line and hopefully get in to see history.

As I started walking along the line outside the Xcel at a little after 4pm, it was already huge. I came to the end of the line, but was informed that it reached back across the intersection I was standing right next to, and indeed I could see that stretched many blocks into downtown St. Paul. However, this line was set up along a metal fence that had been set up for the event. As I stood at the intersection, I saw people walking on the other side of this fence toward another entrance and forming new lines at the doors there. I knew that two entrances would be opened for the rally, so I just followed the line that was moving. So I ended up in one of six lines, about 20 people from the entry doors. I don't know if I was supposed to be able to do this, but no one told me not to. After two hours they opened the doors. I got in, bought some food and hit the bathroom (which turned out to be a very good decision, as I would have never gotten my spot back if I had had to leave it). In another stroke of luck, I overheard an usher saying that entrance to the floor could be gained from the line to my right. So I went to my right, stood in line, got onto the arena floor and grabbed the best spot I could-right in front of the empty podium, about 25' away.

The seats filled up slowly over the next three hours, and my feet started to hurt as I had been standing for a long time. But when Barak Obama and his wife, Michelle, came out, it was as if the room had exploded. MSNBC had been on the jumbotron earlier, but it had been turned off before Obama had been declared the nominee. Thus, when he came out and began to speak, the line "I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States" almost caused the crowd to riot. The closest thing I can compare it to would be the footage I've seen of Beatles' concerts in the 60's. I couldn't even hear the whole line-everything after "nominee" was cut off.

The speech wasn't long, but that was fine. Afterward I stayed and tried to get as close as I could to the rope line. I didn't get to shake his hand (I was about 2 people back from being able to do that), but I did get within about five feet of him as he worked the line. And that was pretty freaking cool.

Thinking about it later, it occurred to me that this might be the most historic event I'll ever personally get the chance to witness. Something could best it, of course, but for now it's easily at the top of the list. The best five hours standing I've ever spent.

BWCA

2008-06-08T04:21:00.004+01:00

Last weekend I got the chance to go on a very short-notice trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which takes up a decent part of the northern Minnesota boundary with Canada (it extends into Canada as Quentico National Park). I've been several times before, but the last time I went was just before the beginning of my senior year at Carleton, which was the fall of 2001.

I consider the BWCA to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and this trip reminded me just how correct I am in that assessment. I went with my good friend Dustin Allebach and two other guys. We entered through Brule Lake, camped one night (in a bit of rain), then did five portages the next day (totaling 324 rods) to Winchell Lake, where we stayed for two days. Though we fished for most of the weekend, only one fish was caught out of a canoe, a 2 lbs. sucker that was hurriedly thrown back.

However, the guy who had set up the trip (Dan McCarthy by name), had the practice of throwing out smelt on a hook at each campsite, letting it sit on the bottom and wedging the fishing pole into a position on shore such that we would hear the drag going out if there was a hit. Well, I didn't hear the drag, but I did see the rod bending after we arrived and set up camp on Winchell. After about 7 minutes of fighting, I managed to land an 8 pound northern, which I'm pretty sure is the biggest fish I've ever personally caught. It was turned into Saturday night's main course, which was good because we figured we'd catch enough fish for at least one meal. Unfortunately, other than these two incidents the fish were conspicuous by their absence during the weekend.

On Sunday we bushwhacked to the top of a cliff on the south side of the lake, where we saw rain go by off to the north of us, giving us a rare double rainbow effect. Even more rare was the fact that the brighter rainbow split at its apex into a second color spectrum, so we kind of had three. We then proceeded to take the steepest route down the cliff that didn't involve jumping into the lake. No one was hurt.

A fantastic trip. I'm glad I was able to go.

Let Deathball Begin!

2008-05-29T06:37:00.002+01:00

I love Futurama. Its best doesn't quite reach the Simpsons' best, but it's more consistent (even during the earlier, good Simpsons seasons) and it's more creative. It sucked when it was cancelled, especially since it was Fox's fault for moving it all over creation. I was a devoted fan for the last season or so, and I couldn't figure out when it was on half the time.

Anyway, that's all in the past, as Futurama is coming out with movie-length dvds. The first offering, Bender's Big Score, was excellent (although with a different tone from the episodes). I eagerly await the next release, The Beast With A Billion Backs.

Look! A trailer!

VPs

2008-05-27T20:11:00.004+01:00

An excellent look at Obama's potential VP candidates. I'm all about the Obama-Luthor ticket.

Stardust

2008-05-21T19:28:00.001+01:00

This is pretty cool.

Good News/Bad News

2008-05-21T19:20:00.001+01:00

The good news is that Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams, the creators of two of my favorite TV series (Firefly and Lost), have new shows coming out next fall. The bad news? They're on Fox, the channel notorious for cancelling shows quickly after FUBARing the marketing. The most notable examples being Firefly, Futurama and Family Guy, all of which have had some form of post-cancellation life.

So on the one side I hope they're good. On the other side, I'm a little afraid of really liking them only to have them cancelled out from under me.

Here's a preview for Abrams' Fringe, and here's a preview for Whedon's Dollhouse.

Hillary Clinton is pissing me off

2008-05-21T17:56:00.001+01:00

Yes, I am an Obama fan. But that's not the reason. The race was pretty much decided when Obama won NC big and lost IN small, but I have no problem with her staying in until SD, MT and PR have voted (by the way, isn't it weird that US administrative holdings like Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. vote in the primaries but not in the general? I think it's weird). She might as well, at this point.

What's pissing me off is the Michigan and Florida thing. This used to be a non-issue, until Hillary got behind. Then she suddenly changed her mind about the great injustice that the DNC had perpetrated on the poor states. Here's where I stand on that.

Fine, I get it. FL and MI are two big states come November that the Dems could really use. They don't want to piss them off too much. But for Hillary to seriously suggest that the delegations should be seated according to the voting results is idiotic to the Nth degree. It's dumber than a bag of lombotomized emus. It's dumber than playing golf in a thunderstorm. It's dumber than the movie It's Pat. It's offensively stupid.

Let's look at the facts: the DNC pulled the delegates after MI and FL moved up their primaries to get more national media attention. All the candidates knew it, and no one protested. Neither Hillary nor Obama campaigned in either state before their primaries. The only names on the Michigan ballot were Clinton, Kucinich and Gravel, as Obama and Edwards pulled theirs at the request of the party. This meant Hillary, with one of the biggest brand names in politics, had a massive advantage over Obama, especially among older and lower-income voters who would have limited (or no) access to the internet to research the candidates themselves.

Both races would have been much closer had the candidates actually campaigned and had Obama's name been on the ballot in MI. Hillary would have stood a good chance of winning both states, but since the delegates are proportionally allocated the margin of victory is all-important. Hillary's assertion that the results should stand as they are is lunacy. Declaring victory over an opponent whose name wasn't even on the ballot is about as un-democratic as you can get.

Flag pins are stupid

2008-05-21T17:39:00.002+01:00

They are. They really, really are. I honestly can't believe so much time and energy has been spent paying attention to this ultimate non-issue.

CNN's Roland Martin, who I find consistently astute and insightful, has a Swiftian solution.

War in Lebanon

2008-05-08T17:21:00.002+01:00

CNN and the BBC are reporting that fighting has broken out in Beirut after Hezbollah essentially declared war on the Lebanese government. At this point the fighting mostly seems to between Sunni (who back the government) and Shia (oppose the government/backed by Hezbollah) militias, rather than between the army and Hezbollah itself. Roadblocks have been set up throughout the city and the airport has been effectively shut down.

What apparently set this off was the government's decision to sack the head of security at the airport, after he was accused of allowing Hezbollah to install their own surveillance cameras. The government then followed this up by declaring Hezbollah's "extensive fixed-line telecommunications network" illegal, leading Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, to declare war (kind of) on the Lebanese government.

You know, I've heard Beirut is actually a pretty nice city-modern, cosmopolitan, etc. It's a shame that they've got crazy bastards running half their country. Plus, can't the Sunnis and Shias just figure out a way to play nice?

Given amount of control Hezbollah has in the south and east of Lebanon and its presence in the government, this could go one of two ways: one, the government backs down (or "compromises") and things blow over, or two, it doesn't and the country rips itself a new one.

We're Nazis on the Moon, We carry a Harpoon...

2008-05-07T16:15:00.002+01:00

This is a teaser trailer for a movie called Iron Sky. Nazis are a pretty stock bad guy at this point. So they had to jazz them up a little bit. Therefore: Space Nazis!

Primaries

2008-05-07T02:43:00.002+01:00

Right now Obama is projected to win NC by a sizeable margin. I'm hoping it ends up at least 60-40, although it's currently 56-42 with 56% reporting. That's good but expected news. At this point Indiana is the story. With 75% reporting, Hilary leads 52-48 with about a 39,000 vote lead which has been shrinking all night. Several of the counties that have yet to finish reporting are around Indianapolis and have been supporting Obama so far. If Obama can manage to pull even it would be a serious victory for him.

Boundarylessness

2008-05-07T02:39:00.003+01:00

I just finished applying for a job. This process, as it often does, required me to register with the company's employment website. When I finished, they sent me an email confirmation to let me know my application had been received. Here's the last line, which I guess is meant to list their corporate ideals:

Customer Focus - Valuing Our People - Passion For Winning - Innovation - Boundarylessness

Wow. Boundarylessness. Now that's bold.

"You think you're the only superhero in the world?"

2008-05-06T06:20:00.003+01:00

Before the two days of insanely nice weather, frisbee madness and sunburn that was the weekend, I saw Iron Man on Thursday night at 12:01. First things first: seeing movies at midnight on the day they come out is awesome, especially when you're able to haul a group of your friends who have to work the next day along with you. Second things second: I am not an impartial reviewer. I've read Iron Man comics, and I love superhero movies. I am the target audience. However, I also had fairly high expectations of the flick, given the positive reviews I'd read and the fact that the trailers kicked ass. I was not disappointed.

How not disappointed? Marvel has had (by my count) nine origin films: Blade, X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, Punisher, Ghost Rider and now Iron Man. One is out-and-out bad (Ghost Rider), two have enjoyable elements but are fatally flawed (FF and Punisher), two are decent (Blade and the director's cut of Daredevil), two are pretty good with minor issues (X-Men and Hulk, which is consistently undervalued) and one, while not perfect, is fantastic (Spider-Man). Iron Man is Spider-Man good. That's how good this is. Don't get me wrong, it still has flaws, but it's so easy to look past them you might not even notice the first time you see the movie.

Robert Downey Jr. makes the film. It's all about Tony Stark, and RDJ does a great job playing a great character. Jeff Bridges makes a great villian, Terence Howard is very good as Tony's friend, and Gweneth Paltrow totally delivers as Pepper Potts (which I was worried about after seeing Sky Captain). The performances are backed up by the fact that Iron Man is probably the coolest-looking superhero yet. The FX are slick as hell, and when Tony finally suits up in the red and gold it is damn impressive.

Iron Man is the first production by Marvel Studios, the production company Marvel started a few years ago when they stopped selling their character rights to Hollywood studios for production. This is important in two ways: first, it gives Marvel creative control over its movies, so presumably we'll never have anything as bad as Ghost Rider of FF:Silver Surfer inflicted on us again. Second, with its charcters under one roof, we can start to see the Marvel Universe as a whole, instead of everyone is separate worlds. If you don't already know, there's a scene at the very end of the movie, after the credits. Make sure you stay for it.

When the movie ended and the lights came on at about 2:30am, my only real problem with Iron Man was that I couldn't watch the sequel right then and there. It's planned for 2010, which is honestly much, much too long to wait. Marvel needs to get its ass in gear on this one.

Skip Day

2008-05-03T04:22:00.002+01:00

I'm skipping my planned post on Iron Man, which I saw at 12:01am this morning, since I spent nearly the entire day in the hospital with my grandma, who had a heart attack on Thursday. Fortunately she's fine (or as fine as can be expected), so things went ok, but I'm still pretty exhausted.

I'll also just say now that I don't expect to post tomorrow, as it's the day of the GOP alumni game down at Carleton. I expect to be drinking quite a bit, along with playing frisbee in what might possibly be snow. In May.

Jib Jab

2008-05-01T20:15:00.003+01:00

For my money, JibJab has some of the best comedy videos on the web. Their Shawshank in a Minute sketch is probably the funniest thing I've ever seen online, but they're most famous for their political animated shorts from the 2004 election cycle. Which is why I'm disappointed that they haven't done anything with the Hilary/Obama mess yet. I'm hoping that once the primary is over, they'll come out with some Obama/McCain stuff (yes, I'm fairly sure at this point that Obama will be the nominee). But since '04 they've only come out with one or two animated shorts a year. Their year in review bits are funny, but I'd really love to see more political bits.

Back on the Blogging Horse

2008-05-01T19:51:00.003+01:00

Alright, let's try to get back on this blogging thing again. Ahh, blogging.

My last post promised a review of the RSC's production of King Lear that came to the Guthrie. Since that was awhile ago now, I will merely say that I enjoyed the production immensely and that the audience was given a full view of Ian McKellan's Little Gandalf.

For this post all I wanted to do was provide this link to a website my good friend Mr. Bartley has set up so people can follow his progress as he and his wife Jodi hike the Appalachian Trail. They are currently taking a short break to get their finances back in order after a case of identity theft, but should be back on the trail sometime soon (although not too soon, as I just finished picking them up from North Carolina which took two long days of driving).

If you go to the site, you'll find they're not just hiking the trail, but using it as a fundraiser for the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation, as both Caleb and Jodi have relatives who are breast cancer survivors.

My goal for the blog will be one post a day, on whatever happens to strike my fancy at the time. Let's see how well I keep it up.

Why it Matters that Everyone Hates the Yankees

2007-10-16T06:18:00.000+01:00

I'm composing my thoughts on Lear, but in the meantime I thought I'd pass this along, from Tom Verducci at si.com, about the massive swarm of bugs that hit the second game of the Yankees-Cleveland series.

OK, you've probably heard too much already about those infamous sacrifice flies of Cleveland, the mighty midges that, unlike almost all AL hitters, knocked Yankees phenom Joba Chamberlain off his game. But this is too good not to pass on: When the bugs started swarming Chamberlain, a local insect expert in Cleveland telephoned the Indians with an urgent message -- those bugs are called midges, and whatever you do, do NOT use insect repellent; midges are attracted to the stuff. The Yankees practically bathed in bug spray; the more Chamberlain put on, the more the bugs swarmed him. So there you go. The Yankees can spend $190 million on payroll and still leave a blatant weakness: no, not their middle relief -- their lack of an entymology expert.

Now that's just good stuff.

Lear at the Guthrie

2007-10-12T22:18:00.001+01:00

One nice thing about having parents who are members at the Guthrie Theater is that, from time to time, I get free play tickets (and pretty nice seats, too). Another nice thing is that when I hear there's a traveling production of King Lear coming to the Guthrie, and it stars Ian McKellan, is directed by Trevor Nunn and is produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, I can order them to buy tickets I would otherwise be totally unable to get.

We're going to the final production on Sunday. It's listed on the website as 3 hours and 40 minutes, and I'm betting it's going to be a damn sight better than the last 3.5 hour play I saw (sorry, Hanberg).

I'm very excited, of course. I'm going to be in the same room as Gandalf, which will kick ass. Add to that the fact that he's one of the most accomplished and respected stage actors alive, performing one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, and you've got a recipe for an English-major geek-out.

The cool part is I've seen productions by the RSC and Nunn before. When I studied in London my group took a trip (actually the first weekend, I think) to Stratford-upon-Avon, where the RSC is located. We saw productions of Comedy of Errors and The Rivals (unless I'm much mistaken), and both were excellent. Later that term I saw a production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard with Vanessa Redgrave that Nunn directed at the National Theater (which I believe he was in charge of at the time). It was the one production that we couldn't get enough seats for the entire class to go at one time: we had to go in groups of four, since that was the maximum number of tickets they could get for one show.

I'll post my thoughts Sunday night. Expectations are high, I hope they get met.

Tacoma in Minneapolis

2007-09-18T22:59:00.000+01:00

By the way, it appears that the Tacoma weather, which was grey and rainy during most of my long weekend there, has followed me back to MN. It apparently picked up some extra moisture on its way across the rocky mountains and the Dakotas, but other than that Minneapolis has been doing a very passable Tacoma impression so far today.

Back from Tacoma

2007-09-18T20:50:00.000+01:00

I spent the weekend making what's become an annual Hajj to Tacoma, WA to see my good friend Mr. Hanberg. It's always a pleasure to get out there and hang with him, because it generally means an excellent few days when I get to eat good food, see good movies and play good chess. This time around the menu featured Thai food, burgers and omelets, all of which were fantastic. The schuedule featured a Mariner's game which we left when the M's were losing badly only to find out they staged a major comeback to take the game, a 3 hour play called The Steward of Christendom which was decent but probably should have been about an hour shorter, and screening of Shoot 'Em Up, King of Kong, Stranger than Fiction and several episodes of Heroes.

The King of Kong screening was notable because Steve Wiebe, who is pretty much the protagonist of the film, held a Q&A session after the movie. The movie was extremely well done, and it was nice to get a greater depth of understanding on the whole situation with the Q&A.

Erik and I also played several games of chess. This is pretty much the only time during the year that I play chess anymore, and it's something I always look forward to. I think we played somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 games this weekend. I'm the better player, and I got a couple of cheap victories when Erik didn't see an early checkmate, but he did manage to get two draws and really made me work for the last couple of victories.

The great thing about chess is that it's an equal battlefield. There are no surprise attacks, no extra forces you can call on. Your entire game plan is right there on the board for your enemy to see, and the only mistake you can make is to not consider enough of the relevant possibilities. Kudos to Mr. Hanberg for raising the level of his game and really putting the screws to me in several of our contests. And Erik, here's a link to the pawn power book that I read years ago that helped me out.

Thanks also to Mary, Erik's GF who had moved in since my last visit, for putting up with me for five days.

Weekend in Chicago

2007-09-10T23:39:00.000+01:00

I just got back from an excellent weekend in Chicago. Most of my time was taken up by the Chicago Heavyweights Championship, which is a fairly large ultimate tourney that takes place every year just before sections. This is the second time I've gone (and the first with a team I didn't pick up with), and thankfully it was much cooler than the last time I was there.

But I did actually get to see a little bit of the city while I was there. Gregg, Kellie and I left the cities on Thursday night so we could get to Chicago by lunchtime on Friday. We stayed Friday and Saturday night at the condo of a friend of Gregg's. We weren't the only ones, either. There were six people sleeping on futons or the floor of that condo. Fortunately the floor plan was pretty open and there was plenty of space. I was very impressed by the absolutely beautiful view from the balcony, made more impressive by the storm front coming in from the North.

So after getting in for an excellent lunch at a vegan restaurant, we ended up walking into Union Station with a stop at a bar for a glass of amazingly (expensive) trappist ale and later that night riding the L to pick up a massive order of sushi for dinner. All in all a pretty good Chicago experience for only one afternoon.

I am Iron Man

2007-09-10T20:57:00.000+01:00

The trailer for Marvel's next big movie, Iron Man, came out today on apple trailers. I think they were supposed to wait until tonight, as it's premiering on several tv channels, but it looks like they jumped the gun (which is cool, since I wasn't going to watch The Hills on MTV).

Iron Man's never been the most compelling of the Marvel superheroes for me, although I couldn't really tell you why. Tony Stark is pretty much the epitome of cool, a billionaire playboy who's a massively talented inventor (replace inventor with dective and you have Bruce Wayne, by the way). But he doesn't have the greatest rouges gallery and I ususally seem to like him more as part of the Avengers or the Ultimates. I thought the role he played in facing off against Captain America in the Marvel mini series Civil War was fantastic, though. I also haven't read the most famous Iron Man arc, where Tony, who's an alcoholic, bottoms out.

At any rate, the new trailer looks good, and I've heard excellent things about this movie so far. The sequence at the end is clearly the equivalent of Spidey swinging through downtown NY in his first trailers.

State Fair '07

2007-08-31T19:59:00.000+01:00

I've gotten my fill of the Fair for another year. I went last Sunday Java and Carl for about 5 hours or so, and then yesterday with family for somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 hours. I consumed enough calories to feed a small African nation for a day and a half, most of those coming from cheese curds, mini doughnuts and fresh chocolate chip cookies.

I don't know how he hears about these things, but Java's mission on Sunday was to find the booth that sold Viper Jerky, which he had heard billed as the hottest jerky ever. After looking for most of the day, he ended up asking another jerky stand where it could be found, which was fortunately close to the All-You-Can-Drink Milk Booth. As Carl and I watched with curiosity and barely concealed hilarity, Java ate one of the two small pieces he had bought, tearing up after the first bite. It made me curious enough to try some, so I had a bite of the second piece. It was about as hot as eating a whole plate of fairly spicy thai food very quickly. Impressive, but only for the heat-it didn't have any other taste. I was fine, Java not so much.

Most of the time Sunday was just spend in a delicious wander from food to food, looking at various exhibits and what not. I did get to see Etta James, Al Green and B.B. King perform last night, which was cool. Although I would have liked to see more of B.B., as he only played a 50 minute set and talked for a good portion of that. Not that I didn't enjoy hearing him talk; he told several good stories, the best of which was about him slipping over to the "good" (read: white) side of the tracks as a young man in Mississippi under cover of darkness and taking a long drink from a segregated water fountain (after the concert I started working it out-B.B. was over 40 by the time the civil rights movement gained momentum in the 60s. Wow.). It's amazing that he's still touring at age 81 (82 in September), especially with the health problems he has (diabetes, bad joints, etc). The biggest cheer of the night was when he repeated a line he had just sung, saying "I'm going to play until I die, folks." It occurred to me that when he finally does go we're going to miss his voice almost as much as his guitar. It's still as powerful and vibrant as ever, and I'm glad I got the chance to hear it in person at least once. That's history right there.

Invincible

2007-08-29T21:08:00.000+01:00

"This is Wolf Blitzer, and you're watching CNN. And now, for the latest insight into the nascent Presidental race, we go to our newest political correspondent, Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro. Nice to have you here, Mr. Castro."

"Nice to be here, Wolf. And please, it's Fidel."

"So Fidel, we're still several months before the Iowa caucus, and no one's dropping out of the race yet, but political pundits have been speculating that a Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama ticket would give the Democrats the best chance to win the general election. Your thoughts?"

"Well Wolf, I'd first like to say that I'm disappointed because both of them feel the sacred duty of demanding 'a democratic government in Cuba.' They are not making politics: they are playing a game of cards on a Sunday afternoon. That being said however, I do think that the two of them on one ticket would be invincible. The Republicans would have a very hard time matching that sort of star power."

"Interesting. Now, Al Gore hasn't yet entered the race, but several observers think he might declare late in the game. Do you think he will?"

"I don't think he will do so, although I must say that Gore, better than anyone, knows about the kind of catastrophe that awaits humanity if it continues along its current course. Of course, when he was a candidate, he committed the error of yearning for 'a democratic Cuba,' which is just one more example of how the US is hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma that perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society."

"Thanks for your insight, Fidel. We'll talk to you again as the primaries get closer."

"Thanks for having me, Wolf. Have a good night."

Why Sterotypes Exist

2007-08-28T22:49:00.000+01:00

I've only seen Zoolander once, but I seem to remember some advice being given to models about answering any question with the response "world peace." This would have been good advice for Miss Teen South Carolina, whose response to a question about US education was all over the map on which 1/5 of Americans can't find America (supposedly).

I'm sure the poor girl simply got very flustered and started babbling, since she only had a limited amount of time in which to respond. But I'm afraid that she's set the cause of getting ridiculously beautiful blondes recognized for their brains back a few years.

This version of the video has subtitles, which makes it even better. Also, if you look closely at the guy holding the microphone at the end, it's clearly all he can do to keep from busting a gut laughing.

ConVick

2007-08-27T20:36:00.000+01:00

I was watching CNN this morning, which was covering two stories: the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Michael Vick formally entering a guilty plea as part of his plea bargain in court. Two thing struck me about the coverage.

The first was that the Gonzales resignation was taking a back seat to the Vick coverage. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about this, as it's just another indication of the power of the cult of celebrity and the pull it exerts over our news programs. But somehow I thought that the resignation of an Attorney General who somehow managed to pull off the once-thought-impossible feat of making was forget just how bad John Ashcroft was would get top billing, at least on a station like CNN. A little later I was on JibJab.com and found this video, which struck me as being appropriate.

The second thing I noticed was from Vick's statement to the press after he entered the plea. He said that this situation had called him to "find Jesus." Now, I watched the statement and I don't doubt the man regrets his actions (facing at least a year in prison will do that), but the finding Jesus bit and "turning my life over to god" statements are starting to really be the go-to line for anyone who gets in trouble and has to account for their actions to the public. Not that it's not a good strategy, since sometimes it seems this country has been getting so rabidly religious that I'm surprised Bush hasn't slipped and called the war on terror a crusade. The "I did something bad, but now I've found Jesus" excuse has been used so much that it really strikes me as inauthentic. Whatever cultural or intrisic personality defects that caused Vick to be able to treat dogs in the manner reported weren't a result of not having an active religious life. Actions like that indicate the need for some serious help.

30-3

2007-08-23T17:59:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the Texas Rangers were down 0-3 to the Baltimore Orioles in the fourth inning of the first game of a double header. By the end of the game they had rattled off 30 unanswered runs, the first team in over a century to do so (in 1897 the Chicago Colts beat Louisville 36-7). Sure, that's impressive, but if you look at the stats it gets even better.

-The Rangers scored 30 runs, but they only had 29 hits. There was one error committed by the Orioles and 8 walks given up by the four Oriole pitchers. So the Rangers left only 8 men on base in a game in which they had 38 baserunners. To put it another way, a Rangers baserunner had a 79% chance of scoring during yesterday's game.

-All the 30 runs were earned, so the one baserunner that reached because of error didn't score.

-The four Oriole pitchers combined to strike out 11 Rangers.

-Of the 29 hits for Texas, 21 were singles. 21! 2 were doubles and 6 were home runs. I only find this impressive because I'm fairly certain the Twins could find a way to hit 21 singles over the course of a game and not score any runs.

All in all, a massively impressive show of offense.

We've run out of things to study

2007-08-22T18:47:00.000+01:00

A British study was recently undertaken to find out if carnivorous dinosaurs were faster than David Beckham. The results found that a T-Rex would have little trouble running down the famous midfielder. Reports that the English are still a little pissed that Beckham left for Real Madrid (and then for the LA Galaxy) are, as of press time, unconfirmed.

Best Lawsuit Ever

2007-08-16T18:19:00.000+01:00

We live in an overly litigious society, in which idiotic lawsuits cause dire warnings to be placed on the simplest objects and nobody thinks anything that goes wrong could possibly be their fault. But it does have some benefits, as well. Like this lawsuit, filed by Jonathan Lee Riches against embattled Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Vick, in case you've been living on Mars with your head under a rock, is being indicted for his part in a massive and brutal dogfighting ring.

Riches is suing Vick for $63 quintillion (or 63 followed by 18 zeros), claiming that Vick stole his pit bulls, sold them on ebay and used the profits to buy missiles from the Iranian government.

Wow.

Vick is only the latest target of Riches, who is incarcerated in South Carolina for committing wire fraud and apparently needs a hobby. The week before he sued Vick he named the Mossad, the CIA and Larry King Live in a suit. But here's the best one:

"In his most noteworthy suit, Riches submitted a 57-page list of defendants that included President Bush, Pope Benedict, actor Tony Danza, Fruit of the Loom, NASCAR, the Ming Dynasty, Skittles candy, the Philadelphia Eagles (2005 roster), the Doobie Brothers, the Congolese Army, the Magna Carta, "WKRP in Cincinnati," the King's Dominion amusement park in Virginia, the philosopher Plato, and the Liberty Bell.

He claimed they collectively owed him money."

It doesn't get better than that.

King on Rowling

2007-08-10T19:36:00.000+01:00

I admit to not having read much Stephen King. In fact, until Mr. Hanberg gave me a book of his short stories a couple of years ago I hadn't read any of his writing at all. But since then I've read a little, enough anyway to disabuse me of the totally uninformed notion that he is a horror writer. Instead, I would say that Mr. King (much like Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors whose work I'm much more familiar with) is a writer: someone who loves to write and will do so at almost every opportunity, no matter what the topic.

All this is by way of introducing an excellent article that King wrote for Entertainment Weekly on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He talks about the last book, but much more about Rowling, the series as a whole and what it's done for books in the 21st century. It's thoughtful and insightful, but beware of major spoilers, since King assumes that pretty much everyone who cares has finished the book by this point.

Ahh, Sequels

2007-08-03T07:39:00.000+01:00

So what's more improbable than two people being able to steal the Declaration of Independence? Why, two people kidnapping the President and breaking into the Oval Office, of course. In the grand tradition of Hollywood striving to outdo itself in sequel form, the trailer for National Treasure: Book of Secrets is now on apple.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the first movie a fair bit, and I'm sure I'll see this one and probably enjoy it as well. But in a post 9/11 security conscious world these movies require a major suspension of disbelief. Luckily, that's what Americans are good at, so I'm sure the movie will do fine.

Bridge Photos

2007-08-03T00:11:00.001+01:00

I went downtown to take a look at the collapsed bridge today-spent about an hour and a half walking around the south side of the river. I couldn't get closer than 300 yards at best. Everything was roped off, and not without reason, as there were a lot of people doing exactly what I was doing. Still, it would have been nice to have gotten a view from one of the surrounding bridges. Oh well.

This is the best of my shots, taken with my new digital camera. Unfortunately it's just a little sucker, and doesn't have much of a zoom. Check out these shots, taken last night by a guy I know who has professional-level camera equipment (and clearly got to the scene before they started roping everything off).

Video of the Collapse

2007-08-02T17:37:00.000+01:00

CNN managed to get some security camera footage of the 35W bridge collapsing. It's pretty amazing-you can find it here.

Bridge Addendum

2007-08-02T07:59:00.000+01:00

So it turns out that my friend's wife was in one of the cars in the middle section of the bridge that fell 64 feet down into the river. If you follow this to CNN.com (picture #1), you can see a picture of her car (the silver saturn in bottom center of the photo that's pointing toward the sky), as well as her (lower right in a white shirt, next to a girl in a green shirt). Pretty damn crazy. She's fine, which is excellent.

Bridge Collapse

2007-08-02T05:53:00.000+01:00

If you haven't heard, the I35W bridge that spans the Mississippi River just north of downtown Minneapolis collapsed just after 6pm (CDT). Current reports have the death toll at 7 and the injured somewhere in the 50-60 range. My family and I are all present and accounted for.

I actually turned on the local news at about 6:10, just before heading out to frisbee practice. As I was leaving the house 20 minutes later the first video images were just starting to come in. When I got to the practice fields, the 6 guys who were there hadn't yet heard about the bridge. They checked their cell phones, and it turned out that the wife of one of my teammates was on some part of the bridge (I'm not sure which part) when it collapsed. He had three voicemails waiting for him, basically saying that she had been on the bridge but was now safe.

If you haven't seen the images yet, go to any news site (the Star Trib will have local coverage). It looks like a major earthquake hit the bridge. This is one of the most heavily trafficed bridges in the metro, carrying over 140,000 cars a day. Beyond the infinitely more important loss of life, this is going to affect traffic in the cities for years.

At this point I've watched somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 hours of coverage on this today. What a crazy night. If I get the chance to go downtown tomorrow I'll try and post my own pictures.

Well, I'm Back

2007-07-31T18:10:00.000+01:00

A lot's happened since I last posted in this space. Since the end of March, I've decided to move to DC with my girlfriend, driven out there twice (once to move her, once to move a massive truck of stuff), been to Las Vegas for Mr. Bartely's bachelor party, gone to my 5 year college reunion, been to weddings in Raleigh, NC and on Grand Bahama Island, and had said girlfriend break up with me. So it's been a tumultuous four months for me. I am no longer moving to DC, and am now trying to decide what I want to do next.

As I try to figure out that next step I'm going to try and start posting regularly again, as usual on whatever topic seems to strike me on any given day. Like pretty much everything in my life right now, we'll see what happens.

784!

2007-03-21T00:06:00.000Z

That's the page count that's being reported for the American version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which reportedly will mean my British edition clock in at around 700 or so.

This will make Hallows the second longest book in the series, and while some people have been critical of Rowling's inability to cut it down, I actually prefer the longer books. The strength of Rowling's story has always been characterization and the detail which she puts into Harry's world, and a longer book just means we get more of that. Otherwise we'd have novel equivalents of the movies, and nobody wants that.

Of course, none of this will matter if Rowling has decided to kill Harry. Based on the responses I received in my highly scientific poll*, if Harry dies at the end of the book culture and civilization as we know it will cease to be and everyone will join mass suicide cults. Talk about pressure.

*Poll may not be highly scientific.

Pirates!

2007-03-20T23:57:00.000Z

The trailer for the third Pirates of the Carribean movie came out yesterday (or the day before, it's so hard to tell with the web sometimes). You can check it out here.

Not a bad trailer. Lots of action, including some sweet shots of a pirate armada and Chow Yun-Fat as a particularly badass pirate. I really wanted to see Keith Richards though. No dice, this time anyway.

It'll be interesting to see when I see this movie, since I will be in Las Vegas celebrating Mr. Bartley's soon-to-be-lost bachelorhood when it comes out.