Third by Portishead

Juno

The Wages of Fear has two major protagonists named Mario and Luigi. They wear some kind of uniformed outfits (one with a cap) for half the movie. That made me laugh. And just so you know, the Super Mario Brother names were inspired by an Italian restaurant. At least that's what I found online.

But this movie is far from cartoonish! Although it is a little bit hard to decipher the locale, it's actually set in South America, in a place that one might call the middle of nowhere. Nearby there's oil, and the town serves as a home for the internationally diverse. They all came to the town where the prices were low, and now that the prices are so high, none of them can afford to go back home to their own countries. From France are Mario and Joe, who become friends, to the dismay of Mario's roommate Luigi, when Mario spends all of his time with Joe. A lot of tension builds up between these men.

Finally, the break that many of the people have been waiting for arrives, although it's not much of a lucky break. There is a fire at the oil site three hundred miles away, and men are needed to drive trucks over high, curvy, and bumpy roads to deliver nitroglycerin to the workers so the fire can be put out. The reward is $2000 - enough money to get out of the country. Of course, Mario and Joe are paired in one truck, and Luigi is paired with a German man named Bimba. They have to ride the distance without jarring the trucks too much in order to avoid exploding themselves.

The movie takes a while setting up the situation, the characters, and the relationships. But it's all necessary for the dynamics to play into the driving sequence, which is wonderful. The tension builds up more and more the closer they get to their destination. There are encounters with a cliff-lined road, a bumpy stretch of road called "the washboard", a giant pool of petroleum, and a massive boulder in the middle of their path. All of these are wonderfully filmed scenes, and the actors are all great in them.

Overall, The Wages of Fear is a very good movie and one worth checking out. It covers all sorts of themes, especially that of making a deal with the devil and (obviously) the wages of fear. With its acting, action, and great cinematic view, it certainly proves itself as a Criterion Collection film.

Hey you. Yeah you! Get yourself off the floor! Wipe those tears from your eyes! Clear the drool from the corners of your mouth! Put your clothes back on! While your descent into a desperate and seemingly unending depression is understandable in the absence of an update on our blog, a cure has arrived: A New Post!

The last weekend in April my sister Breanne got married to her Longtime Sunshine Zac. She looked great - that's her and me in the photo above. Kelly was a bridesmaid so she looked hot, and I was a groomsman so I was looking good too. That's why my sister made us put on sackcloths and stop appearing in photos. Aside from the itchiness of my unexpected evening wear, we had a good time visiting with Breanne, Zac, my parents, grandparents, and all sorts of extended family. Kelly's parents even came to the wedding! One highlight of the shindig was hearing my grandmother make a borderline inappropriate joke about condoms. Yeah!

The day following the wedding Kelly and I drove back to Houston and Kelly's parents came along to visit for a few days before heading back to Omaha. We hit up Moody Gardens and Galveston, played Trivial Pursuit, and played Boggle.

There are pictures from the wedding and the Parents Beck visit in Picasa. Click here or a virus will erase your harddrive. I swear.

Last night I went to Phil's house and played a whole lot of Mario Kart. The game is a BLAST. We spent a lot of time playing 12 player online matches. While Nintendo's online services aren't the best, it was still a lot of fun playing against that many human players. I haven't been into Battle Mode since the Super NES version. That is no longer true. The new courses along with classic courses are great and once again all those players make for a really fun game. The only problems I have with the game is the somewhat spotty online play. We got disconnected a couple times in the middle of a game and it was extremely difficult to try and play with Phil's brother. Every time we tried to create our own room we got disconnected. We were finally able to play with him once we followed him into a race but it was still kind of a pain. Also, I don't like that you can only play with one other person on the same console online and only one person's stats are tracked. The other player is designated a "guest" for some reason. Despite these minor qualms, the gameplay itself is as great as it's ever been. I'm very tempted to buy a Wii with some of my stimulus money, if I can track one down.

Last night, after Daniel had his dinner and his milk, I told him it was time for bath and bed, per our usual routine. We have a whole system that we go through each night without deviation: Daniel comes with me into the bathroom; I start the water and he dumps his toys in the tub; as the water is filling up, we go in his room and I help him undress; Daniel runs naked and laughing into the bathroom and I help him get into the now-full bathtub; I was him with a washcloth and brush his teeth; I drain the water; Daniel puts his bath toys back in their container while I count them one at a time; I lift Daniel out of the tub and dry him off; Daniel runs back into his room naked and laughing.

We go through this process every night without deviation, and it works well for us because Daniel really loves bathtime and he likes the comfort of regular routines.

Well, last night I told Daniel it was time for his bath, which is the cue to begin our ritual. Daniel didn't want to start it yet, though. He wanted to hug Eva, stroke her head, hug her some more, give her a kiss, etc. During all of this I patiently reminded him that it was time for a bath. When I finally got him moving in the direction of the bathroom, he turned to go down the stairs to look at something out the window.

Out of patience, I picked Daniel up and carried him into the bathroom. He cried and screamed and fought me the whole time that I started the water and dumped his toys in the tub. He continued crying and yelling, "NO!" as I carried him into his room, held him on the floor, and undressed him. He screamed when I carried him into the bathroom. He screamed when I placed him in the bathtub. He screamed when I shut off the water. He screamed and tried to push my hand away while I washed him. When I finished washing, I put the wash cloth in the water. And just like that, Daniel suddenly stopped crying, picked up the wash cloth, and handed it back to me. I said, "Do you want me to wash you some more?" He smiled and said, "Yes."

So I wiped his face and began washing him more, not because he needed washing, but because I wanted so badly to get back to our happy, loving relationship. Daniel looked up at me and said:

"Sah-ee"

"It's okay," I told him and patted his back.

"Sah-ee"

"I love you," I told him with a sad smile.

"Sah-ee"

This is a new thing with Daniel: when he knows he has done something to upset mom or dad, he looks at us with those big eyes of his and says sorry. It was nice to hear him say it at that moment, and I think it was appropriate for him to apologize for the way he was acting, but at the same time I wished he would stop saying it. Someone once said that being a parent means wearing your heart outside your body, which is absolutely true. Kids can make us feel a love so big that it hurts.

We were worried that when Eva was born Daniel would be jealous of the new baby, but his response has turned out to be far better than we ever could have hoped. From the moment he saw her, Daniel just wanted to hug and kiss Eva over and over again. By necessity Erika has been spending more time with the baby and I have been taking Daniel out of the house more to give her a rest. A few days ago Erika felt like she hadn't been spending enough time with Daniel, so I took Eva and let the two of them sit and hug for a while.

Erika was telling Daniel how great he's been with the new baby and how sorry she is that she hasn't been spending as much time cuddling with him. Erika started crying and Daniel looked up at her with those big brown eyes and said:

"Sah-ee"

Still crying, Erika told him, "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Sah-ee"

"I love you, Daniel."

Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

What's with the overuse of the name Robert Hawkins lately? After watching Jericho, it was hard for me to separate the name and allow it to be used as the protagonist of Cloverfield, but I got over it. Cloverfield stars a bunch of lesser-known twenty-something actors as friends and acquaintances at a party who all get caught in Manhattan at the wrong time - when a giant monster attacks the city. Since this movie has been around for a few months now, I'm going to post spoilers all throughout, so don't say I didn't warn you.

There was so much buzz around this movie that I really wanted to see it when it came out, but we were busy moving and Ric wasn't too excited about the handheld camera experience in the theater, so we waited and Netflixed it. The camera motions didn't bother me, but Ric was feeling a little tired out by the movie's end. I think the movie really did have an interesting concept with the camera work. It put us in the characters' situation with them, and we experienced it as they did. It was also a nice touch because of the moments where Hud the camera man paused the tape and small cuts of the previous footage on the tape revealed details of the relationship between Robert and Jenn.

The movie was definitely better than I thought it would be because of details like that. Sure, it had some cliches, including the idea of quarantining/bombing an island (see 28 Weeks Later, I Am Legend, etc.), the image of a damaged Statue of Liberty (Planet of the Apes), using a dark subway to escape danger (28 Weeks Later), and baby monsters (and subsequently, exploding humans: Alien trilogy). But the ways those were used were all effective, and the effects used with those ideas made it seem very real (except for the baby monsters, who seemed too dangerous to be beaten by three people and a pipe). Every moment still continued to be surprising and filled with tension.

As for the lesser-known casting, unfortunately Hud is also in the mediocre tv show Carpoolers, which I watched for a while in the hopes that it would get funnier. TJ Miller (Hud) plays a guy named Marmaduke, who is one of the stupidest individuals ever. I could only think of Marmaduke through the whole movie, so that kind of killed it for me.

Overall, I think Cloverfield started out a bit slow but got a lot better as it went. In fact, thinking about it now, I'm convinced that I like monster movies so much more than horror movies. And yes, I would group in zombie movies with monster movies. Those such as the first half of I Am Legend, 28 Weeks Later (minus the editing) and The Host all have some really creative aspects to them, whereas all horror movies seem to be pretty much the same. Somehow, it seems that in the monster movies, the characters are all still the focal point, and the monsters are only there to make the characters grow. I've been really interested by the ideas behind these types of movies lately. It will be interesting to see what happens to the genre over the next few years.

Ric and I went to see Iron Man at the uptown Whittier theater at a late showing. I think I'm going to go to Brea for all of my big movie openings from now on, because my last two shows have been full of talkie folk. I sat next to a row of 7-year-olds, but they were completely silent during the movie - it was the quiet-looking couple sitting behind me who had a conversation for the entire flick. Good thing the sound was up nice and loud.

I had no interest in this movie for the many months I had been hearing about it. My first thought when I saw a trailer was that Robert Downey Jr. was too old to play a superhero, and Gwyneth Paltrow wasn't so hot in Sky Captain, so I wasn't expecting much despite the fact that I'm a fan of both actors. But the reviews were hot and I suddenly changed my mind about it (and Ric really wanted to see it too). Surprisingly enough, it turned out to be one of the best comic hero movies Hollywood has made so far.

I didn't really have many issues with this movie, except for choosing the Walt Disney Concert Hall as one of its settings, since every other car commercial or action movie seems to have a scene there. That, and a kind of uninteresting underling villain were the two things that slightly irked me, but that's about it. The movie completely rides on the performances of its cast, along with a clever screenplay/dialog.

Robert Downey Jr. has come a long way from his self-destructive ways, and every performance he gives seems to cement him as an established, awesome actor. Iron Man is a perfect role for him, and his performance as Tony Stark is wonderful in his portrayal of playboy, contemplative/confused man, and superhero. Honestly, the casting was what worried me most, but ended up having the best payoff, because Paltrow was wonderful as well. I don't want to get too surfacy with this review, but red hair certainly does wonders for her. Her one-on-one scenes are some of the biggest highlights of the movie. And Jeff Bridges as a balding grey-haired evil guy was a complete surprise, but worked. Terrance Howard didn't have much of a chance for development with his character, so hopefully I'll have interesting things to say about him in Iron Man 2.

The special-effects are a lot of fun to watch. The Iron Man suit's development and final product are really impressive, especially as all of the parts of the suit lock into place with Tony Stark inside. The Jericho missile and Stark's escape from imprisonment were my favorite explosive touches. Actually, come to think of it, I think the earlier action sequences are a little more interesting than the final battle between Iron Man and whatever you call the super-sized version of him (which for some reason reminded me of the big robots in The Incredibles). Even still, the action is still very entertaining.

I am definitely looking forward to the next installment of this series. As the critics have rightfully said, Iron Man raises the bar high for 2008's summer movies. I'm not so sure any other action/adventure movie will be this good, but one can always hope.

Equal Rites: A Discworld Novel by Terry Pratchett

Bill O'Reilley is a nutcase - Enjoy.

Rolling Stone

Little bits of news have been coming down the tubes for a week or so, but this is the most in-depth piece so far.

The resulting album, tentatively titled Modern Guilt, is full of off-kilter rhythms and left-field breakdowns, with an overall 1960s British vibe. Beck’s vocals float over the music as if he’s singing along to some mystical radio station in the next room.

Each song started with Beck playing acoustic guitar over a drumbeat: If it made the cut, they’d flesh out the music, usually with Burton playing keyboard bass and Beck playing most of the other instruments. There were just a few guests: Joey Waronker added drums to the epic “Chem Trails,” which would have fit in nicely on an early Pink Floyd record.

This sounds terrific. I can't wait to hear it.

And I must say I like this new trend of artists speeding up their recording and release schedules to come out with unanticipated albums.

This weekend was a lot of fun and plenty busy. On Friday after workout (which is now reduced to light weightlifting and walking thanks to my disc issues) I went out shopping at Lowe's and Walmart and got money from the bank. I met up with Ric at home, and we went out to BevMo to buy some goodies for Saturday, and then we headed over to the Wine Stop. I think most of the wines were a miss for me, but I still had a good time, and we managed not to spend an arm and a leg this time around. Friday also marked Jon's graduation from college after beginning several years ago. We're proud of him for working so hard and finishing. I went to see Jon's art show with Brendan on Monday, and it was awesome.

Saturday Ric and I went with my family to Benihana to celebrate Mother's Day. We all had a good lunch together. I think I like Benihana's food better than Karuta, but it's more expensive, and our Japanese food chef was named Jorge, which was odd. We left straight from there for Yo's house in Crestline. I finally got to drive the Mini up mountain roads, and it was fun to see how the car's center of gravity was able to handle the curves so nicely. Even still, I think I worry too much while driving roads like that, so it's not all that fun because all I'm thinking about is how one wrong steer of the wheel could end up with the Mini plummeting off the side of the mountain (also, it's not good to watch The Wages of Fear before taking a drive like that).

Ric and I arrived at Yo's home in only an hour. His house is surrounded by trees, and you can see a tiny bit of Lake Gregory from his deck. The house is awesome and Yo's doing all sorts of cool things to it. We were there to celebrate his 40th birthday. Yo and I met in person on his 30th birthday, so it was a special day for me too. If any of you don't know the story, he and I met online in 1997 on a Morrissey music bulletin board. A lot of us on there were local, so we all decided to meet in person at Yo's 30th birthday party. And the rest is history. We're probably one of the oddest pairing of friends a person could think of, but it works for us. Anyway, we hung out, had some drinks, had some food, watched some videos, and played (or observed) some poke r.

Sunday, we puttered around the house. I kicked it into gear in the afternoon and spent several hours with a heat gun in our office. The original decoration of the condo included a very lame idea - flowery wallpapered wood paneling glued (industrial strength) to the sliding closet doors. Here's a bit of it from a photo back in February. No, it wasn't that color scheme before - it was ALL yellow - we painted the walls blue, and then the trim got painted white after this photo:

The closet is the entire length of the office, which means I need to remove an entire wall of paneling. The only way to do it without breaking the actual doors is to use a heat gun (think: really hot hairdryer) and a hammer. Heat, then pry, then heat, then pry. It was hot, difficult work. And I only got one door cleared with about four hours of work! Underneath the paneling is the glue, and under that is a layer of paint (that's why the weekend was only sort of paint-free). So once the paneling comes off, the glue and paint need to be heated and scraped off. Then the doors need sanded, and then they can be painted. It sure is a heck of a lot of work, but a heat gun only costs $35 and new doors would have been a few hundred bucks. Next time I'll have to wear gloves, because my right hand got really sore from using the hammer and prying the paneling.

I was so wiped out and tired from that that I was starving, so Ric and I made an Arby's run, and then we watched some tv together. I spent the last couple hours of the night reading Prince Caspian, in preparation for the movie coming out this weekend. I'm about 2/3 done right now, so I'm pretty sure I'll have finished it by the time we see it.

Tonight, Brendan and I are headed to the Oscar headquarters to see a screening of Fargo at the Samuel Goldwyn theater. There's going to be a panel of people who worked on the film afterwards. This is the first time we've tried going to the theater, although we both have passes for their summer series, so I'm hoping our first trip out there will go smoothly with traffic and figuring out where to go.

Other than tonight, this week should be quiet. Hopefully that will give me time to do some errands and chores.

Grand Theft Auto IV

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Between homework and real life activities I didn't actually end up playing much GTA this weekend. I played for a couple hours Friday and a couple more yesterday. I really, really dig the game so far. Friday was Jon's graduation party and Saturday we had a BBQ at Justin's and then hit the town.

I didn't get home until really late because I locked my keys in my car. I tend to do this when I am getting multiple things out of the car. When I leave my car I always check for my keys and my phone. I had brought over GTA so Justin could give it a whirl and I guess my brain substituted the GTA box for my keys and gave me the go ahead to lock up my car. Stupid brain.

Yesterday I spent most of the day doing XML homework. The silly part about it is that we were learning data binding techniques that only work in Internet Explorer. This makes said techniques pretty much useless these days. Hooray for learning!

Tonight I am going to see Fargo on the big screen with Jeri. It's part of a screening series the Academy is doing all summer. Peter Stormare is going to be there, so I'm pretty stoked about that.

I hope you guys all had a good mother's day weekend. My mother's day festivities involved an extended phone conversation with my totally awesome mom. She lives in Wisconsin these days, so I don't get to see her very much. Once again I'd like to give a shout out to all the moms out there. I hope you had a great weekend!

Mother | Tori Amos
A Mother Has A Hard Road | Killdozer
Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight | The Misfits
Mama Don't Get Off | Jack Oblivian
Mommy's Little Anarchist | Crash Dog
Just Like Your Mom | Electric Frankenstein
Your Mama On the Rocks | Hewhocorrupts
Mother was a Vulture | This Et Al
Mommy's Little Monster | Social Distortion
Say Mama | Milkshakes
My Mom Still Cleans My Room | MxPx
If Mother Knew | Oblivians
My Mother's Only Son | Blindside
Mama Said | Metallica
Blame It On Mom [Live] | Johnny Thunders
Mom's In Rehab | Huntingtons
Send A Picture Of Mother | Johnny Cash
Mama's Boy | Ramones

It's a happy Mother's Day for an Arkansas woman — she's pregnant with her 18th child.

And of course, the gem that always gets me:

She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it.

I wonder what their stimulus check is like. :O

Sauce.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you lovely ladies out there! I have so many friends that are mothers now that I can't even list them all without leaving someone out accidentally.

But a special nod goes to the couple of ladies I know who are currently expecting their first children. Today we found out that Abby in our office is three months pregnant! What an exciting time.

So here's to all of you young moms, who are doing your best to keep up the home, raise your child, be a good wife, and be yourself. I know it's a balancing act, and I admire you for doing it.

Who knew Peter O'Toole was capable of being a manly man?! In The Lion in Winter, he plays Henry II, who has ruled for many years and acquired much power, but must now choose which son will take over as king when he dies. The problem is that Henry favors his son John (Nigel Terry), his hating-loving wife Eleanor (Katherine Hepburn) favors Richard (Anthony Hopkins), and poor Geoffrey (John Castle) must fend for himself since nobody seems to care for him. Added to the complexities is the character of Alais, played by Jane Morrow, who loves Henry but could possibly be forced to marry one of his sons.

The movie was adapted from a successful play, and it shows. The dialog is whip-smart and moves quickly and with great impact. Each scene is filled with so many witticisms, emotions, and changes in the direction of the plot. At one moment, one might think there was love between certain members of the royal family, but at the next, one is sure that they all hate each other and are simply plotting. And it switches back and forth throughout the whole film, leaving the audience to figure out if even the characters actually know how they truly feel about each other.

I haven't seen a lot of Peter O'Toole movies, but (and I know I'm a minority on this) I hated him in Lawrence of Arabia. Actually, I'm not so sure I hated him so much as his actual character. O'Toole was kind of set in my mind as the epitome of a wuss since then, so to see him roar through the castle in The Lion in Winter was a surprise. It was a welcome surprise, though, and I loved him as Henry II. Not to be outdone is Katherine Hepburn, who seemed to become a much better actor as her years progressed, and is absolutely superb in this movie. She is most certainly the star of the show. This movie also marks the first major role of one Anthony Hopkins, who is one of my all-time favorites. His character is extremely interesting because he is both a fighter and a pawn, and he handles the extremes very well, from absolute anger to vulnerability in a matter of seconds.

The movie does feel like a play, with each scene lasting a very long time and the sets being only a few rooms of the castle. It works, though, and the movie is deeply involving because of the family's tight quarters for their battles of words and wits.

Overall, it's thoroughly tiring because of its range of emotional charges but a very great film.

I got my stimulus check and my copy of GTA IV so I may be a bit occupied for awhile. Hope you all have a good weekend and a happy early Mother's Day to all the moms out there. You really do make the world go 'round even though sometimes you drive us a little nuts.

I couldn't even talk Ric into seeing this one with me. I'm not sure why I really wanted to see it, but then again, I run out to see Nickelodeon movies some times, so why try to make sense out of my movie tastes?

Anyway, I thought it was probably safest to see this at the cheap theater, just in case, so I had to go see it by myself. Thanks, dear! The highlight of the audience was an older man who looked like stalker potential but ended up falling asleep halfway through the movie and snoring through about 1/4 of the story. Other than that, I've actually been having better luck with audiences at the cheap theater than those at regular ones lately!

Jumper is about a teenager who lives alone with his father and has a crush on a girl at school. He gives her a snowglobe with the Eiffel Tower in it because she wants to travel. When another guy sees it and makes fun of him, throwing the globe onto an ice-covered river, it's not hard to guess that our hero will go after it. When he does, he falls through the ice, and instead of dying, he instinctively teleports himself to his local library. Several years later, after he has honed his talent, he's being tracked by people called Palladins, who think that all Jumpers should die (for religious reasons, of course). He pops back to his home town to pick up the girl he loved, and they fly to Rome, where the adventure begins, including the discovery that there are others of his kind.

The movie stars Hayden Christensen, who shows here as well as in other movies (see: Shattered Glass) that it really was George Lucas's fault that he came across so poorly in Attack of the Clones (say what you will about Revenge of the Sith - I liked it). Jumper doesn't give Christensen much of an acting challenge, but he's at ease in this role, and makes the preposterous plot not seem so preposterous, which I think takes talent. His co-star is Rachel Bilson, who does the best she can with the character she's given - a girl who doesn't seem to question very much when the boy who disappeared under the ice shows up 8 years later with no explanation of how he lived.

The movie obviously has a bit of ridiculousness and some flaws. One bit of ridiculousness is that one of David's favorite places to relax is on a lawn chair on top of the Sphinx. Uhh, that's pretty obvious, with so many tourists around, don't you think? The movie also has a lot of narration at the beginning, but none of it is necessary at all, and it would have been a better movie without it.

But despite the little things, Jumper has a little bit of something to it. The jumping itself is pretty cool. The sound and visual effects are good. The locations are all over the place and interesting (I got to re-live my honeymoon a bit in the Rome sequence). The idea of jumping is well-developed, including wormholes and the idea that a jumper can take people or items with him when he jumps. David's relationship with his father and the story of his mother are more than I would have expected out of a movie like this.

It's a movie that had the potential to be much better, but ended up being pretty good anyway. I'm not saying that it's taking home any prizes, but I had a fun time, and am not sorry that I made a point of going out to see it. It's probably better than some of the blockbusters I'll end up seeing this summer.

While I'm not a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails' music, I love the way the last several albums have been distributed. I blogged about the exciting viral marketing campaign for Year Zero, but I haven't mentioned the far more significant news of the two releases that followed it.

You may have heard that earlier this year Nine Inch Nails (or Trent Reznor--I'll be using the two more or less interchangeably) released Ghosts I-IV for free on the internet. Following Radiohead's pay-what-you-want album, this release received much less attention in the press, even though Trent Reznor gave fans higher-quality audio files through his cooperation with bit torrent clients.

It may have been easy to overlook Ghosts I-IV because it didn't feel like a traditional album: it's a collection of instrumental pieces that probably wouldn't have been at all successful if released in a traditional medium.

But this past week Nine Inch Nails announced yet another release, and this time it's a more traditional, 10-track album with vocals and everything. Once again, it's given to everyone for free online, and in multiple high-quality formats.

All of this is pretty exciting, coming from a successful, high-profile artist. Yet I think the biggest news about this album is a detail that most people have overlooked. Both Ghosts I-IV and The Slip are released under a Creative Commons License. In other words, fans can not only download the music for free, but they can also freely distribute it, perform it, sample it, remix it, or incorporate it into any other work (This American Life has used music from Ghosts in two of their shows). The only conditions are that the original artist is credited and that the derived work is noncommercial and released with a similar license.

To understand the significance of this, consider what has been happening in our culture with music recently. In an attempt to reign in filesharing and to increase profits, music distributors have been claiming stringent control over what is done with music after it has been purchased. Fans are told they are not free to copy music for their own personal use or even rip CDs to an mp3 player. Coffee shops are getting in trouble for playing music in their stores without permission. There is talk of charging radio stations for each song they play.

While the mainstream music distributors are pushing toward greater limits on what consumers do with music, Trent Reznor has come along and given permission to not only download his albums, but to use them for any non-commercial purpose, completely free of charge.

So while Radiohead gets the big headlines for a one-time free album download (and they'll always be my personal favorite band), Nine Inch Nails deserves the real credit for leading the way to a whole new way of distributing and licensing music.

Good News

Congrats are in order to Kyle who welcomed the second addition to his family on Tuesday, Evangeline Mae.

Evangeline: from the Greek euangelion (εὐαγγέλιον), meaning "Good News"

This is Evangeline Mae, born May 6, 2008 at 8:10 a.m. She weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces.

We are calling her Eva.

Her mom and dad are very excited...

...and so is her brother.

- D I N O * R U N -

I'm just happy I finally found a flash game that isn't blocked at work. The name says it all here. You're a dinosaur and you run. The 8-bit graphics are fantastic.

I think I just reached a part of my Netflix queue that I added when I first started getting into Netflix, and I was bored one day and started adding all of Roger Ebert's recommendations. I can't think of any other reason why it looks so random to me. So expect all sorts of variety in the future!

The Right Stuff was another I had heard of and always meant to get around to, and now that I have, I wonder why I never saw it earlier. The cast alone is so enticing, especially now, because it's so fun to see all of these famous people in their younger years. Starring Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, Barbara Hershey, Kim Stanley, Veronica Cartwright (who I always like to think of as "the bad acting mom from Flight of the Navigator" but is wonderful here), Pamela Reed, and Mary Jo Deschanel - to name a few - this movie is the story of America's first astronauts. I'd just like to add that Ed Harris isn't an actor that I tend to enjoy, even though he is usually a very capable actor, but with his role as John Glenn, it was impossible to dislike his infectious performance.

Beginning with recruitment of pilots, the story takes us through tons of tests and competitions and leads to the first manned trips into orbit. It's such a comprehensive storyline and is so interesting that I certainly didn't mind that it was three-and-a-half hours long.

The movie is beautiful from start to finish, with great use of color, costume, sets, and direction. I really liked the combination of imagery and music as well. The scenes with the failed takeoffs were particularly effective to me.

I liked that this movie focused a lot on character development rather than just telling us the events as they happened. This is the story of people, and whether or not it's completely accurate, it's a complete movie because the script got into the details, such as the story of John Glenn's wife (especially when she turns down LBJ for an interview). There are also several scenes that show the solidarity of the astronauts. I really liked watching them learn that they had to like and stand up for each other in order to reach their common goals.

But even beyond the grandeur of the space race, the movie is framed and intersected often by the story of Chuck Yeager, who began where all of those pilots did, but stayed there when they moved on. The movie really focuses on what makes a hero and what makes a good pilot, and I loved that this story flushed out that theme. They don't do that type of thing often with big movies these days.

Well, as you might guess, I really liked this movie. It's got such an interesting subject, but it tells that story in a great way, and has far more of a sense of humor than I expected. Great flick!

Wow. I knew that Google had been working on Street View for their maps lately, but didn't realize it had finally extended to our area! It's a little bit creepy, but it's so useful for finding one's destination. My only disappointment was that my car wasn't parked on the street when they took photos of our old place. It would have been immortalized!

Anyway, I know I have been bad about posting photos of the new place, so I'm starting off with one straight from the amazing online map system. We now live in a condo complex of about 100 units. Our biggest fear would be that we would move in and realize we were in the ghetto, but actually it's been almost always completely quiet. I say almost because while I was out on Monday, Ric said our quiet (almost non-existent in my consciousness) neighbors had a massive argument and were screaming at each other and knocking over furniture. Whoah! But, after being here for three months, that instance was certainly out of the norm.

We have loved the location of our particular unit, because it's right next to the gate and right next to the trash. We don't have to drive through the complex and go over speed bumps to get to our carports, and our carports have direct access to our condo. The trash bin is right across from our carports too, so it doesn't seem like a very big hassle to take out the trash. In fact, it's actually a lot easier because I don't have to walk through Little Vietnam to put out the trash for pickup. Speaking of which, here's a great photo from our moving day:

That's another great thing about living in a condo - no yard work! While I enjoyed having a yard and took pride in working on it, it's actually nice to have my time free so that I can focus on the inside of our new place.

Another thing I like is that our condo is situated in such a way that we only have a window facing the north in our master bedroom. This means it's always cool in there, no matter what time of day. And so we can sleep or nap comfortably for the first time since we got married, since we're not miserable because of the heat like we were in our old apartment.

So that's an intro to where we live. I'll have to put together a slideshow in the future to show the progress we have been making inside. It's a battle of us vs. yellow, and we're finally winning!

I knew I forgot something yesterday. I am so glad I finally got to meet you, man. I hope you had a good birthday. You're an integral part of this community and your posts pretty much always bring a smile to my face. Here's to you!

Four nights ago my garden was dug up. I looked at it in the morning and all the seeds I had planted were mixed up and it was clear that a dog had been digging in my garden. It was probably looking for one of the many moles that roams my yard. I smoothed the dirt back out, but didn't replant anything. The next night it was dug up again. And the next night. So, I borrowed an outdoor light from my dad, set up my video camera in the window and installed some motion-sensor/recording software on Sara's MacBook (EvoCam). Once I found out which of the neighborhood dogs was destroying my work, I would be able to print off a picture and take it to the owner to ask that they keep their dog out of my yard. Well, my setup worked, but the culprit was not what I expected:

That looks like a fox to me. I live in the middle of a town of about 2,000. I've seen a fox wandering the streets in the last year, but I never was able to catch it on film. Now the mystery is solved, but I don't know what I can do about it. I wonder if the local animal control office has an email address.

Ever since we watched this movie at movie night with the Agadonis, I've been conjuring up Oddball whenever Ric's being pessimistic and saying, "Why don't you knock it off with them negative vibes?" An unrealistic but lovable romp through WWII Germany, this movie stars all sorts of great actors, from Clint Eastwood (Kelly) to Donald Sutherland (who plays Oddball). Together, they are soldiers who get wind of Nazi treasure and create an unauthorized invasion across enemy lines to rob a bank. That they take out some significant German forces is definitely a bonus.

The funny thing that Ryan pointed out is that Oddball is certainly odd when you're thinking about WWII, because everything he says sounds like something out of the mouths of hippies. But it doesn't seem to matter because it's entertaining. And Germany doesn't look much like Germany for half the movie, but again, it doesn't matter because it's entertaining.

Another interesting thing is that Clint Eastwood is pretty much outshone by all of the actors in the movie, but his character's name is in the title. But when your supporting men are Telly Savalas and Don Rickles, and you're an even-keeled kind of guy, I suppose it's understandable.

We all had a lot of fun watching this one. I had never heard of it before, so kudos to Ryan (even though I actually don't like phrase "kudos to") for knowing it so well and wanting to share it with us. It's my pick this week, and I'll be choosing yet another one that I haven't seen in a very long time but remember liking a lot. Let's hope everyone does!

No End was the last of the many Kristoff Kieslowsky-directed movies that I got from Netflix. I have now watched all that Netflix has to offer of his. Sweet. Like Blind Chance, this movie had me from its start, because it begins with a man talking directly to the audience and telling them that he has died. In the events that follow, we learn that his wife has not taken his death well. She realizes, once he is dead, that she loved him more than she thought he did. She seems to alternate between sensing his presence and missing it as well. Antek, the dead husband, does watch her quite a bit, but at the times where she can't see him, she tries to find other ways to connect with him or fill in the void that he left. Eventually Ulla seeks to free herself from the hold that Antek has on her.

Another part of the movie is the story of a man whom Antek (a lawyer) was defending before he died. This is during a period of Martial Law in Poland, and the man is in jail for organizing a Solidarity strike. Ulla directs the man's wife towards Labrador, an older lawyer who was Antek's mentor, but is uncertain that she has made the right move when a question mark suddenly appears next to the lawyer's name in the directory. The lawyer uses manipulation to work the system in an effort to get the man out of prison, but the man finds more freedom in his own integrity than working the system.

It was a little bit hard for me to follow this movie because I didn't have a good understanding of the historical background, so some of the conversations going on in court or in prison were somewhat challenging, although I got the overall gist.

The movie is cast very well, all with actors who were also featured in Kieslowski's later movies. I recognized "the silent man" from The Decalogue instantly; I think his effectiveness in his later role sort of harmed my viewing of him in this movie because I didn't want to hear him talk. Also, from A Short Film About Love, Grazyna Szapolowska was unrecognizable to me. I didn't even connect her with the movie I had already seen. She is splendid here, particularly in a scene where she has a one night stand with a foreigner and tells him everything she has been feeling in Polish.

I think the elements of the story connected with death are the most effective ones, although the movie is successful overall. With the acting, writing, and music (yet again) combined, it was a movie that grabbed me at the beginning and had me very entranced until its end, and I would say that has everything to do with the Kieslowki-Szapolowska combination.

Mac has a story today about a teacher accused of wizardry for making a toothpick disappear. I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Teacher Jim Piculas does a magic trick where a toothpick disappears and then reappears.

Piculas recently did the 30-second trick in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land 'O Lakes.

Piculas said he then got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he'd been accused of wizardry.

"I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, "Jim, we have a huge issue, you can't take any more assignments you need to come in right away," he said.

Wow. If I ever sub again I'll have to remember not to bust out the old disappearing thumb trick. I didn't know wizardry was grounds for dismissal. I guess Florida doesn't mess around. What do they do when Penn & Teller come to town?

Hi all,

In comparison with the past couple of weekends, I kept myself pretty darn busy this time around. On Friday after workout, I headed straight to the stores to buy a wok for my mother-in-law, because we were having our Mother's Day early this year. While I was out, I bought a lot of supplies for the Cinco de Mayo party, which I'm in charge of coordinating. It's a thing we do at work every year to have fun and eat food together. Basically we love parties. I went home and worked around the house and got some trim painted, and then Ric and I headed out for a late-night showing of Iron Man, which we loved.

Saturday I slept in only a little bit, then got up and started painting trim. Once I was finished with that, I shopped online a bit and ordered a heat gun for trying to get some paneling off our closet doors in the office. Then I headed out to the stores to shop for more Cinco de Mayo stuff. There's a party supply store in Santa Fe Springs that I can't recommend enough. Its prices are decent and they just have so much stuff! I loaded up with supplies for a couple of parties, then headed over to Costco. I had been considering a membership there for a while, but when I realized I needed to buy a 4+ pound chunk of beef for shredded beef tacos, I knew that I should just go get a membership. The awesome part was that I got a free $25 cash card at sign up and was able to use that to buy what I needed. From there I went to Vons to buy brownie sundae ingredients, and went home to bake brownies, since brownie sundaes were Ric's mom's choice for her Mother's Day dessert. Then we headed over to Ric's parents' place and went with them to Karuta for Mother's Day dinner. We had a good time there and then spent the evening chatting over our sundaes. I think I did more painting once I got home, and Ric and I watched Cloverfield too.

Sunday there was an outdoor church service and we didn't want to go, so I woke up and went straight to work on paint. I finally finished all the paint in the office and the living room! It feels good to finally be able to say that something is finished. We also ordered a little console to hold all of our audiovisual equipment, which should come in the next couple of weeks, and then the living room will almost look complete (minus some artwork). In the evening Erika called and we caught up with each other for a while, and then Ric and I went out to try and entertain ourselves only to find out that every store we wanted to visit was already closed. We made a quick stop by the grocery store, then watched some tv together (after I did a little bit more painting).

Today has been crazier than the weekend. I got to work and unloaded all of my party supplies, and then it was time for the department meeting. Once that was over, it was time for chapel. Our chaplain is retiring after 42 years of service, so we had to make sure to go and show our support of him. It was a fun time. After chapel, I started set up for the party, and at lunch we ate to our hearts' content and had a great time together. As soon as we were done cleaning up, I headed out for a doctor's appointment.

I had the test results for my MRI today. They say, "There is a central annular tear at the L5-S1. There is a moderate-to-large central disc protrusion. This projects approximately 6 mm posteriorly. This is likely in contact with the S1 nerve roots where they arise from the thecal sac. There is disc desiccation at this level." When I had my very first MRI a few years ago, the protrusion was 3 mm. So, it has increased, and now there is a tear on the disc. This is what has been causing my hip trouble while running. The only thing to do is not to overdo things. Supposedly, over time the tear will heal itself, and hopefully that will end the hip problems. So I guess that means I won't be running for a long time. That's frustrating, since it's very hard for me to make progress losing weight when I'm only walking and lifting weights. But it's what I've got, so I've got to get on with it!

Up this week: tonight is Jon's art show opening, Wednesday we're watching movies with the Agadonis, and Friday is Jon's graduation and celebration!

I freaking loved the movie. If you haven't seen it, go see it and make sure you stay after the credits. If you saw it already and for some crazy reason aren't going to see it again you can watch the scene here. I haven't geeked out so hard watching a movie in a long time. Props to Favreau, Robert Downey Jr., and the rest of the cast for the amazing work and the 100 million dollar opening.

Robert Downey Jr. was incredible as Tony Stark. I can't imagine anyone else in the role. I don't think I would have liked the movie nearly as much if Tom Cruise had been cast as originally planned. Terrence Howard did a great job as well and as teased in the movie, we'll be seeing more of him in the next one. Jeff Bridges was great as always, despite the fact that it's always hard for me not to see him as "The Dude." I'm not a huge Gwyneth Paltrow fan but I thought she did a fine job as Pepper Potts. Add to that one of my favorite Stan Lee cameos and a Peter Billingsley (Christmas Story) cameo along with lots of nods to the comic and you have a great start to the summer movie season. The new Dark Knight and Indiana Jones trailers almost made me forget what movie I was about to see. It has begun....

Plain View #86 - April 17, 2008

St. Stan's

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XSketch is an online multi-player pictionary game. It's pretty fun.

After a brief hiatus my PC is back in action so I finally got to load some new stuff on the iPod. I also started using Media Monkey at the urging of Justin and Jon and I'm beginning to fall in love with it. Let's see if any of the new stuff shows up today.

1. Pet Shop Boys - I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing
2. They Might Be Giants - Hearing Aid
3. The Stone Roses - This is the One
4. Johnny Cash - Sundy Morning Coming Down
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Honeybear
6. Tori Amos - Black-Dove (January)
7. Oasis - Lyla
8. Jay-Z - American Dreamin'
9. Vast - I Don't Have Anything
10. Morrissey - Jack the Ripper

None of my new stuff popped up. The newest thing on that list is the Jay-Z track from American Gangster and that's from last year. Well, it's time to go home. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Hillary: Rich people, God bless us.

Somehow this multimillionaire is trying to paint Barack Obama as an upper crust elitist.

God Is Imaginary is a site that offers 50 simple proofs that the Christian God is not real. The articles are good and should give any Christian plenty to think about, but I'm not sure how I feel about their use of the word "proof." I think that many varieties of Christian faith today have been winnowed down over the years so that they're almost impossible to disprove.

Early on in the Christian myth God is someone who can walk, talk and wrestle with a human. Then he withdrew to Heaven, that place up in the sky. The story has Jesus going to Heaven by way of the clouds and promising to return by the same path. We've taken rockets beyond the clouds and the atmosphere and we don't see a gold-plated kingdom floating up there. We see only the vacuum of space. But now God and Heaven have moved to "another dimension" or "outside of space and time."

Another example of this can be found in prayer. The stories say that humans used to talk directly to God and he talked back. Then he only communicated through prophets. Early in the Christian era (and among some denominations today) it was thought that any believer could do miracles and expect answers to prayers. But today, most liberal Christians admit that they don't expect prayers to be answered as the Bible promises. Or, if they refuse to admit that, then they're quick to excuse God for not giving them what they ask for. Some go so far as to downplay prayers that ask for something in favor of seeing prayer as an act that conveys a spiritual benefit to the person praying. Early Christians and modern fundamentalists would see this as a very weak and non-Biblical view of prayer.

So, in my opinion, today's Christians can choose to divorce themselves from historical Christianity or they can divorce themselves from reality.

Prayer is something that can be tested. The Bible promises that prayers will be answered.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
- Mark 11:24

You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
- John 14:14

Yet study after study has shown that prayer has no supernatural effect. When you pray for something, it's no more likely to happen than if you didn't pray. Many Christians, aware of this fact, are careful to not pray for anything unless there's a decent chance that it will happen anyway. When it does, they rejoice in the power of prayer. When it doesn't, well, that was just God's will.

This video makes the case that prayer is just another superstition:

But what about liberal Christians who admit that the passages I quoted above are not inerrant or at the very least don't mean what they seem to mean? Perhaps they value intercessory prayer for the calming effect it has on all involved and the social connections that it creates. Knowing that others are thinking about you and praying for you can have a real subconscious effect on a person. Studies on the efficacy of prayer have to control for these factors by making sure that patients don't know whether they're being prayed for or not. Why would we want to spoil the effect by pointing out that prayer actually has no supernatural effect? Preventing stories like