:: Archipelapogo ::

:: 31.3.03 ::

Si, se puede!

Happy Cesar Chavez Day! He was a good man.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Subhumans Tour Dates are up!

Just a reminder for those that were interested, almost all of the Subhumans U.S. tour dates are up. They're neglecting Dallas, and playing Austin and Houston on a Monday and Tuesday, respectively, which normally would screw me over big time. Fortunately, I played my cards right and scheduled an upcoming work-related trip to those two cities very very slyly. I'll be leaving Houston as soon as possible Monday evening and booking it to Emo's in Austin to catch the show. Then I have a meeting Tuesday in Austin. Worked out well, eh? I think I may need some trucker's candy for all this driving and doing though.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Pretty Picture, but how?

I often forget that there are a few folks that read the 'pogo and not the rest of the stuff that I read. So since I posted it to MeFi today, here is something for the rest of you: How did this picture get made? Read about it first, and then when you have your guess, check it here (or just follow the link from the first page, which would be a little more logical). Thanks again, [+] ::
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Rare Sunday Bloggage

Another Bush causing destruction
ending foreign graciousness
his idealistic just killings
laying morbidly near our psyches
quietly reverberating
silently tortuous.
Utter "vae victis"*
wail xerically
yell zestfully, zealous youth.

Xenophobic war vibrates
under tepid societal regression
Quivering persons
operating near madness
live
kill
justify
Inbred hatred germinates
fully elicits destruction
ceaselessly begets aggression.

*woe to the vanquished

Your turn.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Insert lame pun akin to “I’m mad for MADI” here

I read in yesterday’s paper that Dallas is home to the only museum in the world devoted entirely to the genre of art called MADI.

Founded in 1946 by Carmelo Arden Quin, this intellectual art movement encompasses a complex yet entertaining spirit of joie de vivre and innovation through use of geometric forms: circles, stripes, waves, spheres, spirals, lozenges, arcs and meanders. The MADI philosophy is demonstrated through drawings, paintings, sculptures, architecture, theater, music, poetry, dance, novels and stories. See the enclosed overview on MADI art for more detail. The mission of The MADI Museum and Gallery is to delight, inspire, educate and communicate through the collection, preservation, exhibition and interpretation of unique and memorable MADI art from around the world.

It sounds really cool to me. The museum here looks to be full of some really cool displays. Bonus: it's free. I'm definitely going to check it out this weekend. For those around the area that are interested, here’s a map.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Also for free
Here's a list of fifty other things to do in the D/FW area for free. Some are kind of lame (watch a basketball game with friends on television!) but some are quite cool and tell you how to contact people for free tours, museums, etc.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Evil afoot
Apparently the ghost of Lee Harvey Oswald is pissed at something, because someone's screwing around with the phones here in the Office of Government Slack. It'll ring once, and then hang-up. Or ring several times until you pick the phone up and then disconnect. This is happening to me and at least one other co-worker. So I've turned my ringer off. I'm mainly posting this to remind myself to turn it back on tomorrow. Hope nobody needs me.

:: Scott [+] ::
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Uttered last night
While watching "The Count of Monte Cristo"*
"You know, Guy Pearce seems like the kind of guy that would screw you over and then try to fuck your sister."
*it's really a quite awful movie, btw.

:: Scott [+] ::
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Shock and Awe, cinema style

So say you happen to go to the closest local indpendent movie theater on a Saturday night to catch "About Schmidt" and you happen to grab their weekly newsletter and you happen to see that for one week oonly they're playing a movie called Irreversible and it won a lot of awards and it's foreign and you figure that even if it's only showing for one week you may not want to miss it even though you didn't bother to read thesynopsis, but you and your girlfriend (happy birthday, D.!) decide to go anyways. Here's what may or may not happen.

(Warning: spoilers and discussion of graphic content follow)

Said film may contain two very disturbing scenes, that are quite long and very vulgar. One may involve the meeting of a fire extinguisher with a man's face, repeatedly. Over, and over, and over. Even though you've got your eyes closed and your head turned away, the sound effects may still disturb you immensely. The other scene may involve the rape of a woman. And it may last somewhere around twelve minutes, which may be about twelve minutes too long. And then you may look at the flyer after leaving the theater and see the warning about two very graphic scenes of violence and rape. And then you may kick yourself for not being prepared.

Irreversible is a French film that runs a lot like everyone's favorite indie movie of 2001, Memento, i.e. the snippets of actual story telling being told in 5-10 minutes chunks in reverse order. The story is basically one of a man finding out that his girlfriend has been brutally attacked and his seeking revenge.

Cinematically speaking, the film is a dizzying array of spinning, floating, and running camera shots. The camera rarely sits still during the entire movie, especially between scenes. There was obviously a lot of effort put into making some of the shots seem seamless, and either the editing was done very well or the camera work was painstankinly difficult. As an added feature, sound effects are used very prominently and repetitiously for added effect, especially in said disturbing scenes. I understand that, at least with the rape scene, the message about the brutality of rape is solidified by the painstankingly excrutiating bluntness of the scene (which other than being very disturbing, isn't very sexually graphic). You really feel violated by the time the rape is over, something that the director was likely trying to convey. Of course, again, my eyes were closed pretty much the whole time. But struggles of pain and suffering translate pretty well in French, even without reading the subtitles.

If you do go see this movie, hopefully you are already aware of what you're going to be subjecting yourself to. Fortunately, other than those two scenes, there really aren't too many other graphic sequences, especially for the last half hour or so which is a very sweet picture of a young couple seemingly very much in love, shot in a very tender way. The film is only playing for two more nights here, but others may want to hear the experience of someone that has been through it. The film isn't without redeeming qualities, but you've got to have a stomach or set of nerves much steelier than mine to truly enjoy this film. Just sayin'.

But the opening title sequence was very hypnotic and pleasing, and was a pretty good way to break your mind into the dizzying camera shot. And Moncia Belluci, who plays Alex, and will be in the Matrix II and Reloaded, is an absolutely stunning woman. So those are some good things, you know. Plus, two of the camera shots, one at the very beginning and one at the very end, were overhead shots of the camera looking down on spinning objects (the top of a rotating police light and a lawn sprinkler, respectively) with the camera rotating in the opposite direction, which was really freaking cool to me for some reason.

I do know that D and I were craving some wholesome something or other when we got out of there before attempting to go to sleep. Watching a Food Network program about an Avocado Festival in California never seemed more engaging.

:: Scott [+] ::
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Feh.

Sorry for the unexplained silence. We got an upgrade all the way to I.E. 5.5 at work and it's been blocking out Blogger. Netscape/Moz blocks it too. Furkin surf control. I tried downloading Opera today to see if it would work, and while it doesn't block Blogger, the text area for typing in posts doesn't have a cursor, so I can't type.

Any help would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'll just have to blog from home after work. Eep.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Following up on the "Under the Radar" thing

So President Bush gets his tax refund approved. In order to do it, Veterans' benefits have been slashed by $15 billion over the next ten years. Support our troops indeed, you fucking hypocrites.

If for some reason I do wind up getting a tax refund, I'm taking the money and giving half to charity and the other half to the campaigns of politicians that I support. If your mad about where the money to fund the tax refund is coming from, I'd encourage you to do the same. Added bonus: it won't stimulate the economy as planned, thereby reducing the odds that Bush can claim it as a victory during Election 2004.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Go Stevie Go

Steven Nash (and Nick Van Exel) came under fire from The Admiral David Robinson for making comments not supporting the war. Steve Nash stands by his positon. Thanks, stevie.

You do have to question Robinson's debate style here, though. Here's his quote "The time for debate is really beforehand. Obviously history will speak on whether this was the right thing or the wrong thing, but right now (the soldiers) are out there. Support 'em. There's plenty of time for commentary later." So, basically what he's saying is, "you lost the debate, sucks to be you, come watch it on CNN at my house and cheer"? That's pretty weak, David.

Robinson also added the time-tested (and still faulty) argument: "maybe they should be in a different country, because this is America and we're supposed to proud of the guys we elected and put in office." I get so tired of people saying things such as this that it does actually make me want to leave. It's an argument so full of illogic and hypocrisy that it makes me want to spit. Oh, well. I shouldn't be surprised to hear Mr. Robinson saying such things.

Tariq Abdul-Wahad and Evan Eschmeyer have also made statements against the war. The Mavs certanly are my team.

Too bad the Spurs won last night, though.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Hey there

So the ground war has started. I've been very busy at work (and away from my desk) all day, and will be again here in a little while, which makes me kind of nervous, just b/c I'm afraid I'm going to miss out on a major development or something. But such is life.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Those of a bibliophiliac type nature may want to check out BookFilter, which just launched this morning. I've signed up, but I don't know how much I'll participate. For one thing, I imagine that many of the discussions will be more about genres I don't particularly read or enjoy (i.e. SciFi, Fantasy, etc.). Not to stereotype too much, but these are internet folk. Additionally, until it planes out a bit, I'll be intimidated as hell in knowing that a lot of the people will be extremely well-read (much more so than myself) and much better at analyzing and discussing books. I do read a fair amount (I think I read roughly 23 books last year) but I have little confidence in my ability to spot subtleties in style, storyline, and symbolism, and all those other literary things. That's not to say that I read trash, I just don't think that I enjoy books like The Tin Drum on the level that someone who is a professional book critic would. And that's fine by me, but it also means I'll be a little quieter. (btw, Jaquandor, you should join this for sure).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The listing at PeaceBlogs has gotten huge over the last few days (thanks in part, I'm sure, to a FPP at MetaFilter). Nice to see people latch on. I'm hoping that it can maintain some kind of status in the coming weeks without actually having a place for people to discuss things. I've clicked on quite a few of the links, but haven't left any comments or e-mails with anyone. Probably should if an organized community will come out of it.

That's probably it for today. Gotta get back to work and do laundry tonight.
:: Scott [+] ::
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So war has started. If you read no further than this second sentence, at least check out Where is Raed? an english-language weblog from a guy in Baghdad. A small sample:

It is even too late for last minute things to buy, there are too few shops open. We went again for a drive thru Baghdad’s main streets. Too depressing. I have never seen Baghdad like this. Today the Ba’ath party people started taking their places in the trenches and main squares and intersections, fully armed and freshly shaven. They looked too clean and well groomed to defend anything. And the most shocking thing was the number of kids. They couldn’t be older than 20, sitting in trenches sipping Miranda fizzy drinks and eating chocolate (that was at the end of our street) other places you would see them sitting bored in the sun. more cars with guns and loads of Kalashnikovs everywhere.
The worst is seeing and feeling the city come to a halt. Nothing. No buying, no selling, no people running after buses. We drove home quickly. At least inside it did not feel so sad.

So what now?

[Begin Ramble]

The next few days and weeks will be a lot of newscoverage. Slowly but surely as the attention span of the American public recedes, we'll learn less, get less coverage, be less exposed to the violence that is occuring half a world away. But first things first. I won't insult the anti-war movement by saying that we failed. Maybe the end goal wasn't accomplished. There's still plenty to be done, perhaps more than previously. Maybe it's a little more important now; more is at stake. I'm proud of the numbers that were culled here in Dallas, around this country, and around the world. But now is no time to sit on our laurels and watch the impending dooms.

I've often been known to say that if I could live in any time period all throughout history, that I would choose the late 60's and early 70's here in the United States. Of all the eras that have passed, that's the one that fascinates me the most. The movement, the societal shifting, the assassinations, the rallies, the atrocities. It must have been one hell of a roller coaster ride. I begin (prematurely, granted) if these upcoming times will be my generations late 60's. Will 2003 be the next 1968? Who knows. But there is, of course, a downside to all of that. For every fascinating aspect of that era, there were horrible acts commited, said assassinations, corruption, COINTELPRO, the whole Vietnam War, the race riots. While they were fascinating times, they certainly aren't enviable in a lot of respects, and I'm not sure I want our world to go through such a thing again.

I'm trying to keep this short, but I know I'll fail. I'm sure I'll go back and edit this post as events develop. NPR is little help right now, as it's all just call-in. That's pretty disappointing. As much as I love talk radio, the dicks that call in are usually infuriating (no matter what their opinion).

I'd be remiss to note that today is Archipelapogo's second birthday. Or was, as there's about 45 minutes left of it. I was going to try to do something, not sure what, for it. It all seems so worthless now. I will take the time to say a big thank you to my dozen or so regular readers. It's confirming to know that in this time, when I'll need to vent and know that my voice is heard, there are people out there that for whatever reason, keep coming back. Rest assured, if I find something that I think is flying under most radars that is valid and trustworthy, it will show up here. I will continue to post links to fun things and make jokes and write movie and book reviews, as I deem them appropriate, but the times are screwy right now. Regardless, thank you all, it means more to me than you can know.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Blogs for Peace

Jpoulos has put together a listing of PeaceBlogs for those that are interested.

Peaceblogs.org is a site devoted to making connections between bloggers who oppose the impending war against Iraq. Regardless of your ideology or political affiliation, your nation of origin, or the size or scope of your site, if you oppose the war and use your weblog to express that opposition, your site is welcome among our listings. You need not be constantly blogging about the war, nor must you be of any particular political persuasion. If you have a blog and don't support the war, sign up.

:: Scott [+] ::
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Monday Morning Diversions

Charles nails driving in Dallas. If you live here, you know how right he is. If you don't, you'll probably be persuaded to never visit this place. Regardless, you'll understand a little more why I love taking the train to work and filling up my gas tank about once a month.

Dieting in 1974? You probably lost weight. Check out these Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974. Great commentary adds hilarity to boot. (mefi)

Denise sends this link to more fun with the ready.gov website. Here's another one.
:: Scott [+] ::
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No links, just chatter

For now anyways. Random thoughts on a Friday morning...

I just went out for my mid-morning smoke break, which I usually take after surfing the web for a while to establish a point between slacking and doing actual work. Alas, here I am. There are a ton of tourists around lately, a motley mob of families on spring break and people here for the Big XII men's and women's basketball conference tourneys. This means a couple of things. For one, I get stopped for directions a lot more often by people walking around. Like (standing outside of my building) "Can you tell me where the museum is?" The great part about this is that twenty feet behind me, there's a large green sign saying "Sixth Floor Museum" and the entrance. Thanks for using your eyes, you lazy bastards. I also get a lot more dirty glances shot at me by parents for raping their children's lungs and minds by smoking anywhere but the back of a dirty dark alley full of degenerates. I figure about half of them are actually mad at me for doing it around their kids and the other half are just jealous ex-smokers, pining for the days when they could smoke guilt-free and happily. Oh well, so it goes. There's also a huge increase in charter buses, which are not only loud, but reek of exhaust. Plus, I've in my life I've travelled no less than 6,900 miles* on charter buses with middle and high school peers, leading to some very disturbing memories. Make me cringe.

Also outside I saw a DART cop vehicle that was converted from an Excursion, and I waxed philosophical silently on the irony of the public transport organization here buying quite possible the most ostentatious, polluting, annoying vehicles ever for their patrol cars. And of course, there was only one person in it.

Tomorrow is the big St. Patrick's Day parade down lower Greenville Ave. (walking distance from my apt.) This is notable for two reasons. First, it's just about the only time each year where walking around at 11:00 on a Saturday morning in public while drinking beer is not only legal and acceptable, it's pretty much expected. Second, I'll be fighting kids for little plastic trinkets; beads, stickers, whistles, candy, etc. that I will take home and then throw out a week or so later when I clean my apartment. But it's not the having of these things that's so great, it's the getting and the keeping away from the little dirty knee-high spoiled loudmouths with their sticky, grubby little hands. Okay, it's more of a mental battle about how much I can take without looking like a St. Patty's day Grinch, but that's not near as interesting to think about.

For about four hours yesterday I actually felt really healthy for the first time in about a week. After having my "flu-like symptoms" my body descended into either a cold, a sinus infection, or really bad allergies. Or maybe a combination. I went back to the county nurse's office yesterday where she gave me a cocktail of two and a half pills that made me feel actually good. My ears unclogged, my throat stopped hurting, I was in a great mood. But of course, last night, it all returned. I took two of the 25mg Benadryls that she gave me last night before going to bed, which pretty much knocked me out around 11:15 (very early for me). Of course, at two in the morning I wake up in a coughing fit rage which caused me to stumble around in my apartment hunting down light switches, a clean glass to put water in, and the toilet. The toilet is due to the fact that sometimes when my allergies get really bad, I cough so much that I gag, and a couple of times it's caused me to vomit. This is not a pleasant feeling. I took one of the Allegra samples that she gave me (which, in spite of the two per day dosage the back of the package says, the Doctor lady told me to take a half of one per day at 8 in the morning) popped that, calmed myself down, and tried to return to sleep. Which I did eventually. I hate Texas allergies.

(* Round trips Tulsa-Winter Park, CO; Tulsa-Orlando; Tulsa-Anaheim, CA)
:: Scott [+] ::
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update

In news related to the government's contract for rebuilding Iraq that I wrote about on Monday, the Guardian UK has revealed* that Vice Pres Dick Cheney is still receiving annual payments from Halliburton:

Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney.
The payments, which appear on Mr Cheney's 2001 financial disclosure statement, are in the form of "deferred compensation" of up to $1m (£600,000) a year.

When he left Halliburton in 2000 to become George Bush's running mate, he opted not to receive his leaving payment in a lump sum but instead have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax reasons.

Cheney is still paid by Pentagon contractor

Bush deputy gets up to $1m from firm with Iraq oil deal

Robert Bryce in Austin, Texas and Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday March 12, 2003
The Guardian

Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney.
The payments, which appear on Mr Cheney's 2001 financial disclosure statement, are in the form of "deferred compensation" of up to $1m (£600,000) a year.

When he left Halliburton in 2000 to become George Bush's running mate, he opted not to receive his leaving payment in a lump sum but instead have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax reasons.

An aide to the vice president said yesterday: "This is money that Mr Cheney was owed by the corporation as part of his salary for the time he was employed by Halliburton and which was a fixed amount paid to him over time."

The aide said the payment was even insured so that it would not be affected even if Halliburton went bankrupt, to ensure there was no conflict of interest.

"Also, the vice president has nothing whatsoever to do with the Pentagon bidding process," the aide added.

The company would not say how much the payments are. The obligatory disclosure statement filled by all top government officials says only that they are in the range of $100,000 and $1m. Nor is it clear how they are calculated.

Halliburton is one of five large US corporations - the others are the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp, Parsons Corp, and the Louis Berger Group - invited to bid for contracts in what may turn out to be the biggest reconstruction project since the second world war.

It is estimated to be worth up to $900m for the preliminary work alone, such as rebuilding Iraq's hospitals, ports, airports and schools.

The contract winners will be able to establish a presence in post-Saddam Iraq that should give them an invaluable edge in winning future contracts.

Draw your own conclusions. I'm going to remain skeptical and cautious about the whole affair. If the contract gets awarded, I'll try to be on top of it and let you know. (via Charles at sixdifferentways).

*This isn't that much of a revelation since this was announced when Cheney left Hallliburton to run for the office.

If this kind of political posturing isn't your cuppa, then maybe you'll enjoy surfing around this site that sells Vintage Circus Sideshow Banners. Also via Charles, who always has stealable links.
:: Scott [+] ::
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boom

My sister lives in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, a quaint little beach town in the panhandle and the smaller sibling to the more popular tourist destination Destin. Fort Walton is also pretty close to Eglin Air Force Base, the largest USAF base in the country. This is where they tested this giant phallus of a weapon yesterday. I'm sure many of you saw clips on the news or whatever.

My mom tells me that my sister said that the people at Eglin actually warned the public in the area about the testing of said bomb. Bomb tests at Eglin aren't a rare occurence, but apparantly warnings about them are. My sister says that she often can see windows vibrating or can hear random noises of tests going off. In the total of about 8 days that I've spent in Ft. Walton, I can't seem to remember any specific experiences related to testings, but there are always helicopters and plances flying over.

My sister said that the test yesterday shook her entire condo, the pictures on the walls shifted, food in the pantry moved, etc. This is one big dude. Thankfully, she reported, they did give out the warnings, as otherwise she'd probably have either thought that the base was being attacked or that Florida had experienced an earthquake.

At least we're spending money on weapons that are easy to control and have a targetable range of destruction. We wouldn't want any innocents to get hurt.
:: Scott [+] ::
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sniffle

Bleh. A thousand apologies, but I was laid out with "flu-like symptoms" for the last few days. Flu like symptoms for me meaning a temperature up to 102.4 and feeling like the waking dead. I've never really been sick like that for multiple days. Now it's kind of regressed into a head cold, which feels great comparatively. I'm ready to be well again.

And then just when I think things are looking up, I open the business section of this morning's Dallas Morning News and find buried in a little column on the second page about four paragraphs talking about how the Gov't is putting out a request for bids for a $900 million contract to re-build Iraq after we bomb them back to the 1400's (B.C.). Even better, the government has hand-picked five companies from whom they will entertain offers, one of which is (surprise surprise) a subsidary of Halliburton (I believe they're called Kellog-Brown or something). No, we're not war profiteers. Fuck you, Dick Cheney. Twice. (a big hug for anyone that can find a link about this story somewhere. my google-fu failed me, or it's being un- or under-reported (likely)).
:: Scott [+] ::
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Some stuffs

For some reasons, most likely a combination of the abuse that I put my body through celebrating Mardi Gras last night and the nice escapist feel of it all, I've been surfing the Google Health News section today. There's some interesting stuff in there:

The Great American Weigh-In is trying to mirror the success of the Great American Smoke-Out. Instead of encouraging people to not smoke (at least for a day), the new campaign is encouraging people to calculate their Body Mass Index, which is kind of a rough estimate of body fat (calculate your own BMI here). There's a congruent push by the American Cancer Society attempting to make people aware of greater risks of cancer due to obesity, especially in the Prostate, Uterus, Kidney, Gall Bladder and Rectum.

McDonalds in the UK are going to offer fruit as a side with a Big Mac. I've long maintained that the first few fast-food restaurants that offer healthier alternatives to fries or tots or onion rings in combo meals would do quite well. Granted, I certainly would've never built fruit in with a hamburger as a marketing strategy, but whatever. I was thinking more just like chips or maybe some roasted potatoes. Arby's has been offering chips for a little while now, but that's not really the massive type place that I was thinking of. Plus, it's Arbys. Wendy's has a baked potato on the menu, but you (to my knowledge, I don't eat there very often) can't sub your fries in a combo for one. Plus, the one's I've had there are a little subpar at best. I'll actually give McD's a tentative thumbs up for this one. Anything to attempt to pull some salt and grease out of people's mouths and insert some (assuredly poor quality genetically modified and pesticide raised) fruit is fine by me.

Additionally, the New Scientist is reporting that by the year 2030, world hunger should almost halve. From the article:

The number of chronically hungry people in the world is set to fall from 776 million now to 440 million in 2030, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

But instead of halving by 2015 - the goal adopted by the 1996 World Food Summit - the number of the undernourished will fall only by 11 per cent by that time.

These are the predictions of a detailed model of world food trends published in full on Tuesday by the FAO, updating its 1996 forecast. It concludes that global grain production will have to rise every year by 1.2 per cent to meet the demand for food and feed. This is 17 per cent higher that the 1990s average.

The FAO thinks the increase can be achieved, but notes that rich countries will have to export more, as the rising need for grain in the developing world outstrips local increases in production.

Good news is, well, good news.

--- I was chatting with the web design guy for the JFK museum yesterday, and he was telling me a bit about the Andy Warhol exhibit that's going in on the seventh floor. It's going to contain some of Andy's work featuring Jackie O and some assassination pieces that he did. The guy told me that the setup for the display is going to feature a replica of Warhol's studio with some paint supplies and silk-screening stuff strewn about. Sounds really cool. I'm looking forward to going.

--- Matt Haughey's piece on switching to Mozilla is great. I kind of go half and half between Moz and IE right now. Most of the stuff that Matt outlines are bonuses as far as I'm concerned. I wasn't aware of the Google toolbar for Moz, which is a feature that I've been completely spoiled by on IE. It's a great tool. As soon as the Moz version has the highlighting capabilities of the IE version, I'll probably use Moz about 75-80% of the time. If you haven't switched, you may want to consider it.

That's about it for now. Hope you're all having a wonderful day.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Siskel Shmiskel

D and I went and saw The Life of David Gale (flash req'd, may be music) on Saturday afternoon. It's the new Kevin Spacey/Kate Winslet flick about an anti-death penalty advocate who finds himself on death row with four days left to live. The movie weaves an intricate spider-web of a story about the fall of a Philosphy Professor due to a false rape accusation and descent into alcoholism. Winslett plays the reporter sent to interview Gale in the last days of his life.

The movie's good, not fantastic "run and see this now" good, but better than most of the crap that's been released this month. Spacey won't get another Oscar for it or anything, but (and I'm going on presumption here as I didn't see it) I'm sure it's much better than K-Pax was. Personally I didn't find it preachy at all, but I've heard of those that did. They certainly didn't get involved in many of the arguments against the Death Penalty other than chanting and signs at some protests. It's doubtfully going to change the minds of anyone who is pro-DP. Much of the movie was shot at the University of Texas (Austin) campus, so that was kind of cool. I guess if I were forced, I'd give it around 3.5 out of 5 stars. You've seen better, but you've likely seen more movies that were worse.
:: Scott [+] ::
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