Man, you wouldn't last a day on the creek!

I've been sick today, which means some time at home in an almost passed out state where I need something make the time go by, but nothing at all complicated. Episodes of I Love The 90's: Part Deux have been building up on the TiVo and served this purpose great.

Normally I wouldn't write about a show like this, since there's not much interesting stuff to talk about. But this time they had a great Kevin Smith moment. Jay and Silent Bob do a bit in every episode called "Guys we'd go gay for." In the 1999 episode Jay went with James Van Der Beek and Bob went with Jason Biggs. I laughed out loud, you see there's an inside joke here. In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back they were making a Jay and Silent Bob movie and Van Der Beek and Biggs had great cameos as the actors to play Jay and Bob. I love things like that.

My Brother's a genius eh, he hooked up our home stereo.

I had good intentions of going out and being active today. I was going to go play golf (yes, you can golf in the cold and rain) but that didn't materialize. Then I was going to go for a run, but I wimped out. Instead I was a total nerd and finally rewired the entertainment center.

You see, it was getting pretty bad. We've had a lot of construction on our place, and one of the side effects of that was I had to move the entertainment center away from the wall to get it all out of the way. Then I got a new device that will switch HD input to both the TV and the projector. The cables weren't organized well to begin with, then got all twisted up when I moved everything. So I both needed to move everything back towards the wall, and hook up the new device. This was a daunting task since the cables closely resembled a bird's nest and were completely impossible to separate.

So I did what any frustrated nerd does - I started from scratch. I started pulling cables out and moving boxes around unhooking things. At this point I wish I'd been taking pictures, because it really was a sight to see. The whole living room was covered in cables and random devices (my roommate was scared.) Then I started pluggin things back in.

But this time I made use of one of the marvels of the modern world: zip-ties! Yes, armed with my bag-o-tying goodness I went to work, bundling up cables that go between various devices. To give you an idea of the scope of the problem: the worst example is the cabling that runs between the DVD players (yes, plural) and the main stereo cabinet - there are 10 cables that make that run.

The whole thing took me about 3-4 hours. I actually had the wiring done in about two (there's enough wires it's hard for me to hold the whole system in my head, I almost made a Visio diagram) but then I had to troubleshoot the new switch, move the screen hanging from the ceiling, and recalibrate the projector. I'm super thrilled it's done now though. The cables in the back of the cabinet are manageable, the switch is working fabulously, and I managed to be backwards compatible with the old setup so my roommate doesn't have to learn how to turn the TV on again.

Side Notes:
- I think it's a good personality study that my good friend Colleen wrote a bunch about clothes shopping on her Blog this weekend while I wrote about hooking up electronics. I guess that's why she's a recruiter and I'm a developer.

- The quote above is from Strange Brew which inspired my all time favorite Halloween costume. Being Eric Cartman two years ago was fun, but it's even more fun to be in character running around with a best friend. Kai and I were the McKenzie brothers and didn't break character all night - to the great annoyance of everyone else at the party. I don't talk to or see Kai enough, I miss you man - you show up in my stories surprisingly often.

Wow, you really believe in this stuff don't you?
Yeah, why else would I do it?

In Good Company made me very introspective. This is a sign of a good movie, I was invested enough in what was going on in to think about my own life through the morality preseted in the film. This is dangerous ground though - lots of times movies that drift off into this area get preachy and forced. I didn't have that problem this time.

Sure, the whole third act is a little unbelievable. Yeah, some parts are forced in order to make the plot do what it needs to do. But those are side issues for me. My favorite part of this movie is Dennis Quaid's character and his family. His family is remarkably functional, the daughter even makes a good joke about it: "My life is so boring, the curse of coming from a functional family."

We mostly see extreme or dysfunctional characters in movies because, well, they're easy to build stories around. The key to this movie is there is only one extreme or dysfunctional character - and he's not that bad. Just a guy who's responsibility has outpaced his wisdom. He hasn't learned yet that experience in an area is inherently valuable and newly learned skills just don't have the same punch.

I hope Hollywood has the courage to make more functional characters. As a society we're so invested in movies, but those movies rarely offer us realistic role models for people we'd like to become. Sure, they offer inspirational stories and cautionary tales. But I walked out of In Good Company thinking that Dennis Quaid's character is a valid role model - I could deal with becoming who he was, and it's realistic for that to happen to me. It's rare that I can say that about movie characters. Let's see more of it in the future.

Morality aside. The movie is also quite funny and smart (except for the events of the third act.) A good time to be had by all.

The appearance of law must be upheld, especially when it's being broken.

Over the weekend, on an incredibly lazy Sunday, I finally got around to watching Gangs of New York. I thought the movie was fun, had colorful characters, was a great peek into the cities of the 1800's (more on this later), but all of that was soft of overridden by it being too damn long.

I don't know. Maybe they needed the length to give the characters the right emotional development, with faster pacing perhaps they would have lost some of their flavor. Maybe they really needed to let the whole story simmer. It's tough to tell. This isn't the kind of movie where there's a clear case about what they should have left out or changed to shorten things up. But for me, it was a clear case that extended beyond my interest level in the movie. By the last 30 minutes or so I had moved on in my head. I was off thinking about other things like what I would do after the movie instead of being swept up with the climaxes of the film. That right there is the best measure of whether a movie is too long or not. Of course, it's kind of imprecise, since it's different for every person - and even different for each person depending on their mood.

My other key observation is when this movie did have me hooked I was not hooked by the characters or the plot. I was hooked by the city. Gangs of New York takes place in New York during the timeframe of the Civil War. I just went to New York for the first time last year and marveled at the size and density of the city. Since I've only seen it once I think of New York as a static thing, something that is huge, majestic, and complicated - but not continually changing. This movie reminded me that New York looked like a totally different place 150 years ago. That in itself isn't surprising, the hard part for my brain is connecting the dots. What kind of crazy process led New York from the chaos it was then to the chaos it is now. That's a lot of building and development and people and money and work. It reminds me of how New Yorker's talk about the city having a fabric and a soul. Something that's been made out of centuries of these unplanned changed. What's really interesting about it is how this is different from large European cities. I believe New York is so modern precisely because it's history has mostly occurred in the fast moving modern age. By the time technological change started picking up old European cities had a huge amount of history to be respected and kept around. New York not so much, they were free to develop at will. I think that's why when I visit New York I'm not reminded that there's a ton of history there, or there was a city there before the era of modern cities. I get a completely different feeling in London, Berlin or Prague.

So when I'm in your neighborhood you better duck,
cause Ice Cube is crazy as fuck.

Guy pointed me to perhaps the strangest cover I've ever heard. Nina Gordon is a female singer with one of those pretty, golden sounding voices. She's done a cover of NWA's Straight Outta Compton with a nice sublime pace and an accoustic guitar accompaniment. My favorite thing about this recording is the complete disconnect between the feel of the music and vocals and the meaning of the lyrics. It's fabulous, and an excellent reminder of why music is so powerful for us. Music holds its emotion, which is seperate from the meaning of what is being said. I'm reminded of The Shawshank Redemption when Red says:

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

I'm not an opera fan, but that's my understanding of what Opera is all about. The lyrics take a backseat to the emotion in the music and vocals. The audience doesn't need to know what's being said - a basic understanding of the plot plus the emotion is what the experience is all about. It doesn't work for me though, I'm too much of a dialog guy.

I'm actually enough of a dialog guy that the reason I like this cover so much is how different the dialog and the music are. I just think that's neat. I think this is also why I'm a huge Barenaked Ladies fan. Many of their songs also have the same thing going on, they sound upbeat and friendly - but are actually very dark.

Anyway, if you'd like to listen to it you can find the track at:
www.ninagordon.com/audio/straightouttacompton.mp3

Great find Guy! It's been in heavy rotation on my playlists all week.

Him - So you have a little thing for me, eh?
Her - No... A big thing.
(Audience: Heh, isn't that supposed to be his line?)
He glances over at her bodyguards:
Him - You think they will shoot me if I kiss you?
Her - No, but I will if you don't.

Last night I was tired, a bit sick, and too lazy to think. I ended up browsing the HBO listings, switched to Chasing Liberty about midway through, and ended up watching the rest of it.

This wasn't because it was good, I think it was more because I was too lazy to do anything else. In my defense it was somewhat entertaining, if you like formulaic teen romantic comedies (like is a strong world for me, but I've been known to watch them.) This one felt like it was cobbled together from parts of other teen romantic comedies, like some find of Frankenstein film. I actually don't remember much original or interesting about it at all.

I think the primary thing it had going for it is I feel guilty that I get HBO but don't watch it enough, so I got some HBO concious points out of it. Whatever works right?

Scratch a lie, find a thief.

I finally made it to see Ray this weekend (I've been falling down on the job as a movie watcher, it's tragic.) I don't really have that much to say about it, the movie was fabulous. The music is great (clearly), the pacing is solid, and the storytelling just works.

Everyone's been talking about how good Jamie Foxx is as Ray Charles, and I just have to echo that sentiment. There is one scene where he breaks character, opens his eyes, and transforms into someone who isn't Ray Charles. Typically this would be distracting, but in this case it just cements how much Foxx was channeling Charles - especially when he effortlessly switches back.

This was just plain an excellent movie. Well done.


Side note: It was also fun to see Richard Schiff looking totally unrecognizable with hair on his head and no facial hair.

You don't seem afraid at all - I don't understand that.

Most of the time I don't talk about TV here much. Every now and then a new show, or a specific episode will be remarkable and I'll have something to say about it. But for the most part TV just isn't that dense. There's not enough content to really have interesting things to say about it. This doesn't make TV bad, it's actually what I like most about it. That density allows it to be a decompression for me, where with movies I tend to pay more attention and be more invovled. But since the TV season is starting back up I figured I'd talk about TV with big broad strokes, there's certainly enough content in TV to talk about it in half season chunks.

We'll start with the Summer. There's a great trend now in TV that there is actually good original content in the Summers. Cable networks do a lot of original programming in the summer to not have to compete with the networks in the Spring and Fall, and the networks have responded by actually putting original content on in the summer. Most of the network content is crap (bad reality TV) but there are gems in the cable channels.

My favorite show this summer was Dennis Leary's Rescue Me about a bunch of firefighters in New York dealing with life and some psychological fallout from 9/11. The writing is excellent, the characters are colorful, and it is all well acted and paced. Leary's character, who the story focuses around is so tragically flawed it's almost hard to believe. But as a testament to the writing and acting he *is* believable. I wish this one was running full seasons - I'd watch. Last I heard FX is shooting a new Season this Spring, presumably to air this summer. I highly recommned it.

The current Reality TV craze really got it's start from summer network programming. Yes, the real reality pioneer was MTV's The Real World but the genre really took off with the start of reality gameshows. And those were kickstarted by Survivor, which initially was a CBS off-season, summer offering. Since then most of the reality shows have been terrible. But CBS's The Amazing Race has always been a gem. This one has mostly been tucked away in the summer for the first five seasons. There was another one over the summer and it was successful enough that CBS added them to the prime time lineup during the regular Season. They've had to play some tricks so far to extend the run, since the format is designed for a short summer season. They started late, and in the last two episodes spent two hours on what would traditionally be a single episode. Survivor has similar issues, but avoids the problem by have two seasons per year - one in the fall and one in the spring. I enjoy The Amazing Race, but it's not really gripping entertainment for me. It's the kind of show that is great for decompression, but I don't really worry about it if I miss an episode (although, thanks to my various toys, I don't really miss episodes of anything any more...)

On the networks, without a doubt the best new show is Lost on ABC. Amazingly I didn't tune in to this one until late in the fall. I was really happy they ran a bunch of reruns over the holidays - that helped me catch up. But one of the many geniouses of this show is a format which is serialized, but you can jump in to any episode and follow what's happening. They're only loosly connected to eachother, and at least so far could be shown out of order and still make sense (not completely, but better then most serialized shows.) As an example, they never have a "previously on lost" segment at the start of an episode - they structure the show to not need it. Each episode subtly advances the story, but mostly probes the backstory of one of the island's new inhabitants. And the inhabitants are all very interesting. The key thing is for most of the main characters their lives are arguably better crashed on a deserted island then they were in the real world. This is an easy sell for Locke and Kate, but a doable arguement for Charlie, Sawyer and Jack. Highly recommended, and if you're not watching this show you should be.

Other shows I promise to be less wordy about...

I've really struggled with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I still watch it regularly, but I think it's gotten kind of tired. I think there's just too much low hanging fruit for them out there, so much absurdity, that they don't have to be as sharp as they once were.

We could debate when The West Wing jumped the shark but if it hadn't happened before it was done when Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme left. I still watch it out of habbit - mostly these days for Toby, Josh and Will. Their characters are still fun.

Everwood has had a pretty solid season so far. There's not much that's sophisticated about this show - but the characters are interesting. The soap influence is pretty strong, but they tackle the subjects seriously, which is a nice change of pace from most TV.

Alternately, The OC is not serious about the way it approaches it's soap drama. It's not totally ridiculous or anything, but this is really more of a comedy then a drama for me. I've been very impressed with them this season. I can't believe I'm writing this, but outside of Lost, this is the most consistently entertaining show I watch.

Another show I mostly just watch out of habit is Smallville. Early this season the episodes were really dragging, but they've been picking back up. In the early episodes lots of ground work was laid for larger plot arcs that should pay off in the second half of the season. Smallville is a show more then any other where I'll let several episodes sit around on the TiVo and watch them when I'm bored and looking for mindless entertainment.

South Park continues to be hit and miss, but when they're on there's nothing funnier around. Of course my love for satire makes me partial in this space.

Scrubs and Arrested Development continue to be quirky commedies that I consistently enjoy. Neither of these qualifies for "must see" status, but I believe they're the best live action comedies on TV. Bravo's Significant Others is also fun, but has a distinctly random feel (this is expected, since it's improv rather then scripted)

Lastly, there are a few shows which are starting up late this season.

I've never been an Alias fan - but several friends are die hards. With their recommendations I'm excited to jump back in. I haven't watched last night's season premier yet, but it's waiting for me. I suspect I'll watch it this weekend while Seattle gets snowed in.

Then 24 starts this weekend. Past seasons have been hit and miss, but typically entertaining. 24 often has problems filling the whole hour with interesting content, and is really where the TiVo shines. Last season I did my own editing job and skipped whole minor story lines. It made the show great!

This seems like a lot of TV. But it's really not so bad with the miracle of TiVo (prepare for TiVo, or other digital video recorder, evangelism.) First of all, skipping the ads saves about 15 minutes per hour of TV right off the top. But the other cool thing is I never sit around watching "whatever's on." Having more shows get recorded then I have time to watch means there's always something I want to watch on TV. Then I sometimes don't get around to watching the extras - or I do mini-TV binges on slow weekends. It's great and if you're a TV watcher you should absolutely get a DVR, it will change the way you watch TV (for the better!)

The claim that social security faces in immenent crisis is simply false

It's not big secret that I'm not a fan of Bush or the current republican agenda. What most people don't know is the ways that I'm not a fan. Sure, I don't like how he's handled the war on terror, and we disagree on a lot of social issues. But those I can live with, the one that really scares me is his economic policy. Massive deficits and debt in the first term was bad enough. But his economic proposals for the second term are even scarier.

I don't even want to get into the idea that we should only tax income and not wealth. It's a ridiculous way to tax the public. As you move up the wealth scale a smaller and smaller portion of your worth comes from income. Not only would this be ridiculous regressive, it would serve to entrench the upper and lower classes in a socially unhealthy way.

Equally bad is social security. My favorite columnist, Paul Krugman, of the New York Times is just starting a long series of columns about social security. The guy is hardcore anti-Bush (mostly for his fiscal policy) so don't expect a lot of balanced discussion. But I don't blame him for this, as I wouldn't be able to say nice things about Bush's ecomonic policy either. Plus, Krugman is well qualified - he's an economics professor at MIT. I'm anxious to read what he has to say over the next few months. I highly recommend his columns, they're well worth the hassle of registering for the New York Times website. You can read the first one here. Lastly his book, The Great Unravelling, is a collection of columns over the past few years is excellent.

If you're not busy you're not doing it right.

Happy New Year!

I had a big year in 2004. The short list is I went on some good trips, continued to raft, and most importantly lost a lot of weight and got in great shape. You can read about it all in more detail in my annual holiday letter:
2004 Holiday Letter

I'm not a big fan of New Years resolutions, I think it comes from my lack of enthusiasm about holidays in general. The reasons for that are pretty complex and I haven't bothered to try to understand them. I think the key is people often use resolutions as a motivator to change behavior, but big changes in behavior are typically not sudden things that happen with arbitrary dates. In my experience sudden behavior changes are rare, and happen after a long process of coming to terms with them. Those processes typically do not conveniently fall on New Years.

That said I do tend to be very reflective around the Holidays. Work slows way down, most of my recreational activities take a break for a few weeks, I write a big letter about the last year, and I go visit my family for a week. All of that adds up to a lot of time for me to think about what's going on in my life and reflect about what I've been doing and what I'd like to do in the future. In doing this I notice certain themes from the past year, and my version of resolutions is to try to decide on themes I want to work on for the year. Then because I'm insane I think about how to achieve those.

For some of them I just need to continue current behaviors, others I need to do new things (or do things that have been on my to do list I just haven't gotten to.) But the key is I don't try to set goals that involve immediate severe behavior change. Remember, you have all year to make the themes a reality. Let that behavior change come gradually, build new habits, and then it will be around for a long time.

And for the record, my themes for 2005 are (subject to change):
- Continue the good stuff I'm doing which has me thinner then I thought I could be and in the best shape of my life.
- Travel internationally (a hold over from last year.)
- Get more responsible with my spending (a continuation of last year.)

These will likely change as the year goes by, but that's what my reflective time over the holidays came up with.

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