January 31, 2002

 
We watched Starship Troopers this evening, and despite being graphically violent, it's also the best anti-war, anti-propaganda social satire I've seen since Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. Director Paul Verhoeven grew up in Nazi-occupied Holland, and the anti-fascist commentary is unmistakable if a person's willing to look for it. (In this day and age, however, I suspect that many people will simply enjoy this as a special effects movie and miss the deeper meaning entirely. Ain't my fault.)

—SPOILER WARNING: Skip the rest of today's entry if you don't want the plot and subtext of Starship Troopers potentially spoiled for you.—

Ostensibly based on a 1959 science fiction book, the film hijacks that cheesy plot and takes it in its own merry direction. The results, in my opinion, are outstanding.

On one level you have a hard core science fiction action flick with fantastic special effects. This is Industrial Light & Magic work, and whew, baby, they've outdone themselves. The CGI work is really top-notch, and even though it's a 1997 film, it holds up very well to today's films.

A second level of the film is a cheesy "Melrose 90210 in Space" sort of thing. Think 1950s high school sci-fi with very attractive young actors in utterly banal roles. Now imagine that as a top-of-the-line high-budget Hollywood movie, and you get a sense for Starship Troopers. Yes, the acting is wooden, the dialogue is cliché, and everything seems over the top. It's supposed to be that way. (My favorite line: "I'm from Buenos Aires and I say KILL 'EM ALL!")

Finally, you get the aforementioned satire. (One great example of which was the howlingly funny, visual pun-filled Federation commercials.) Verhoeven's world here is one in which the young are brainwashed to serve the deified state, but the masterstroke of the movie is that the film itself is propaganda. If you think about it—and I suspect most people who see this movie won't—we don't know why the war started or who started it, only that the Federation says that the bugs are bad.

This movie is all about the inability of people to see through propaganda, so you might need to see the movie again if at the end of your first viewing you don't quite get what I'm about to say: The bugs are the good guys.

If you can stomach the violence, Starship Troopers is highly recommended.

 January 29, 2002

 
I spent yesterday up in Portland with Garr, and he was kind enough to both take me out to lunch (at the hip alternative joint Chez What?) and to listen to a lot of the music I've put together. I must confess the result is that I've got a much clearer sense of direction and I've picked up a nice confidence boost (since Garr was full of praise).

I'll be working on SiteRev.com stuff for the remainder of the week, so I may not be able to actually get going on all the music stuff until the weekend. Nonetheless, I'm jazzed. I finally feel like I know where I need to go with things, and since not having a mental road map when doing new things is a major stumbling block for me, my confidence level that I can actually have the album out this year is currently pretty high. There's a lot of work to be done between there and here, but I think it'll happen.

Speaking of music, the new loligo album is sounding great. It's in final mix-down right now, so actual physical CDs can't be too far off. I'll keep ya'll posted.

 January 27, 2002

 
Snow! Accumulation of about 2 inches over night with occasional flurries throughout the morning has given us a winter wonderland. Kids are sledding in the park. Bundled up folks are walking around. There's a snowman down by the basketball courts. I can see a snowball fight from the front room window.

We also have a few large limbs down out front, the biggest of which is atop a telephone or powerline right out front of our drive way—effectively blocking our car's exit from the driveway and all traffic across our street. We've tried calling PGE, but they're swamped since approximately 7,000 homes in the Salem area are without power. Ultimately, the best I could do is to call the police non-emergency line, stay on hold for 10 minutes, then report the situation to them. They promised to contact the utility company, so hopefully that will take care of it. It's been about 5 hours since I called and so far no change, but whaddya do?

The only good news I can think of about today's Steelers loss in the AFC Championship is that I no longer have to sweat the details of a Super Bowl party. Maybe next year.

 January 26, 2002

 
It's end of semester for Erin, and I've been up in Portland the last three days, so it's fair to say that not much besides work, work, work has been going on. Locally, the house across the street sold, and the weather has been chilly but lacking the snow we crave. I'm setting up to do taxes. (We'll owe a bundle once again.) I've been reading up on real estate transactions and investing; I'm not sure if I want to return to the days of managing rentals or not. Probably not.

On Thursday night we went out to dinner at Rock 'n' Rogers, a local '50s burger joint. Yummy, very filling burger, fries and shake. A little out of character for my on-going SlimFast diet, but once in a while won't hurt any. The SlimFast thing continues to go OK, but I'm not sure if it's making all that big a difference. I definitely feel better, but I don't know that I look (or am) all that much lighter. Perhaps it's too early to tell in that regard. Who knows?

After dinner, we came home and watched Best in Show, a comedy about dog shows and the people who compete in them. It was pretty hit-or-miss in my opinion. Some bits were pretty funny, but it's also your straightforward comedy without much in the way of deeper meaning. Lacking that, it wasn't funny enough for me to call it great or anything. Still, not a bad 90 minutes and probably worth the rental.

Last night we watched the three hour epic Braveheart starring and directed by Mel Gibson. Mel keeps things moving and it's beautifully shot, but I didn't quite see what all the Oscar hype was about. On the plus side: I've been to Inverness, Scotland (where much of the filming was done), and they've really captured a lot of the glory of the area. The acting was excellent. The story, even at three hours, moves right alone. On the minus side: Gory battle scenes with lots of blood-letting. Thematically single-minded ("freedom is good"). Weak conclusion.

Braveheart is worth seeing, but you might come away as I did: Expecting and wanting a little more out of a three hour production, especially one that won the "Best Picture" Oscar.

 January 22, 2002

 
I've been touting the thing for years, so what's a little more hype? I started re-reading M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth. I've read it several times, and each time around I get something new out of it. It remains my fervent belief that you will too.

Peck divides his work into four sections: Discipline, Love, Growth and Religion, and Grace, but it would be very difficult to catalog all the insights he's provided me from even one of those sections. So, realizing I'm almost doing a disservice to his fine book by doing so, I'll just quote one among many. This, from the section on Love:

One result of the mysterious nature of love is that no one has ever, to my knowledge, arrived at a truly satisfactory definition of love. In an effort to explain it, therefore, love has been divided into various categories: eros, philia, agape; perfect love and imperfect love, and so on. I am presuming, however, to give a single definition of love, again with the awareness that it is likely to be in some way or ways inadequate. I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.

You'll have to read the chapters that follow to grasp the implications of this definition, but let me say again that it's well worth doing. If you can't take what Peck's written and apply it to yourself (as well as people you know), you're not trying hard enough. If you make the attempt, The Road Less Traveled is illuminating, and it may very well change who you are.

 January 19-20, 2002—Battleground, Washington

 
Stone cold awesome. Three words to describe both Joe and Carol's joint 30^th birthday party and the Steelers' 27-10 AFC playoff victory over the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens. I've not had much sleep, but man do I feel good.

Joe and Carol threw a great party, and Erin and I really enjoyed meeting new people, seeing old friends, and re-connecting with acquaintances. Carol prepared an elaborate spread for the occasion, and, okay, so I ate more than my diet calls for, but it would have been a crime to do otherwise. I remember thinking, "I can rejoin the battle of the bulge tomorrow. Tonight I'm gonna live fast and die young." Oh yeah, it was worth it.

I'm not exactly clear on how it happened, but in the course of the evening I was convinced to participate in this year's Reach the Beach, a 55 mile bike ride from Amity(ville Horror) to Pacific City on the coast. I've wanted to do this in years' past, but this May it could actually happen. If it doesn't it won't be from lack of encouragement, and truth be told it sounds like a lot of fun.

The main party broke up around midnight, but a group of six or seven continued chatting until around 2:30 AM. After that assembly dispersed, Joe, Carol, Erin and I stayed up another couple hours talking some more. I'm exhausted, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Many thanks to Joe and Carol for their gracious hospitality. (Not to mention the kick butt party—way to turn 30 in style!)

After precious few (though very sound) hours of sleep at Five-Star Hotel Kann, Erin and I were up and on the road to my brother Bret's place in Portland so we could jointly witness the Steelers dismantle the Ravens. If the Steelers win the AFC championship next week, there is serious talk of us hosting a Super Bowl party—the biggest attendance requirement being, of course, that people cheer for the Steelers. First we'll see how it goes next week against the Patriots.

 January 18, 2002

 
I dunno about you, but I've long dreaded wading into the whole long-distance phone thing. I mean, who needs that kind of headache? Given the options available—most of which couldn't be any more unintelligible if they were written in Sanskrit—I've always found it easier to just go with the flow even if it's to my financial detriment. You won't hear me say that very often.

The one financial services company I really trust in the world, USAA, partnered with Sprint a long time ago, so I kind of just jumped on that bandwagon and enjoyed the 10 percent off perk that USAA membership got me.

Through the years Sprint's been a pretty marginal deal on long-distance, but certainly they've been as good or better than AT&T or MCI. Sprint's two competing plans appropriate for us were these:

1. If you make more than $20 a month in long distance calls, you can viably use a plan where you pay $5.95 a month and get 5 cents a minute for off-peak calls. On-peak calls are 10 cents a minute.
2. If you don't usually make that many calls, there's a 24/7 "international" calling plan at 11 cents a minute. That's the one we've been on, so at least we've not had to worry about when we're calling. Still, this is no bargain, even with a USAA knocking it down to 10 cents a minute.

Yesterday, I decided to take the bull by the horns and find a better deal. I signed up with OneSuite.com. Here's how it works: You sign up on their secure web site and authorize a $10 to $50 charge on your Visa card. That gives you a bank of minutes from which to draw when you want to call long distance. Then, to call somebody long distance, you dial OneSuite's toll-free 800 access number from any phone (including cell phones) in the US, punch in your access code, and dial the number you want. The charge? A measly 2.9 cents per minute. Their international rates are also excellent (4.5 cents a minute to France, Germany and the UK, for example.)

Now all those numbers for dialing add up to a lot of digits, so OneSuite makes it possible to set up what are called "ZipDial" phones. These are phones which you've previously authorized online. They're given automatic access to OneSuite's network when you use them. That means you don't have to punch in your access code after you dial the 800 number. For example, my home phone is set up as a ZipDial phone, and I've pre-programmed the OneSuite 800 number into the speed dial. So for a long distance call all I have to do now is hit the speed dial and dial the long distance number I'm calling.

When I need more minutes, I just go to their web site and re-charge my Visa with another $10 to $50 increment of my choice. It's pretty simple.

I used the service for the first time yesterday, talking with my friend Garr in Portland for 69 minutes. Under the old Sprint plan that would've cost $7.59. With OneSuite, it was $2—a savings of $5.59 on one call. And the line quality was fine in case anyone's curious. OneSuite buys blocks of time from one of majors (Sprint, AT&T, MCI) and uses it for their calls.

Now Erin and I have been notoriously poor about staying in touch with people via phone, and I'm being frank when I say that I don't know if this will turn the tide. But as we grow older I think we all increasingly see the value of connections with friends and family, and I've got to think that anything that helps in that regard is a good thing. Check them out and see what you think.

 January 16, 2002

 
I just finished reading The Rants by Dennis Miller of Saturday Night Live and Monday Night Football fame. I'm partial to high brow, obscure-reference humor, so this was the funniest thing I've read in quite some time. A sampler:

...And tolerance should extend to ideas as well. A school-book cannot corrupt your child, especially one whose main characters are a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, and a Cowardly Lion. And if you truly think your kid's character depends on prayer, then damn it, pray with your kid—at home! Stop fobbing off on the public school system your responsibilities as a parent. The schools are there to teach your kids to read, write, and add—skills they will need if they are going to apply for and wisely invest their unemployment checks one day.

Miller is a self-described pragmatist, and that sits him squarely in my corner when it comes to most political matters. I don't agree with everything he says—we're not clones after all—but he's a funny, intelligent guy with his head screwed on right and that's refreshing enough in itself. I still think he's pretty hit-or-miss on Monday Night Football, but The Rants and his follow-up Ranting Again are excellent.

 January 14, 2002

 
Now being served in the White House: Osama Brand™ Pretzels. Can you imagine if President Bush had actually choked to death on one of these things? Every Democrat in the country would've been like, "See? We told you he was too stupid to be president."

Even worse, the president's response this morning ("I feel great!") makes one think that maybe he should have a few more pretzels so he can feel even better. Clearly, if you've seen a picture of Bush today—looking like he just did a few rounds with Mike Tyson—it's obvious that a gang of pretzels would've done him in completely. He's lucky that it was only a single pretzel perp that attacked him this time. Next time he may not be so lucky, and it's this author's opinion that he should probably avoid the entire snack foods product category for the immediate future, lest a couple of Twinkies and an Oreo cookie ambush him when he least expects it.

 January 7, 2002—Los Altos, California

 
Okay, well, I got only about 4 hours of sleep at Motel 6, despite taking the drowsiness-inducing cold medication. Too bad for me. I left about 10:30 AM, and the rest of the trip here to Los Altos was uneventful.

I met with Shan and Heather for dinner this evening, and eating and chatting with them was a great contrast from spending so much time stuck in a car.

Heather prepared a really yummy bean soup, which she chose in part because my New Year's resolution was weight loss. Unfortunately, my problem since I've started the SlimFast thing has tended in the opposite direction: I'm not getting enough calories per day.

You really don't want to go sub-1200 daily calories, and I've been bordering or below that all too frequently. Today, for example, I had 2 SlimFast shakes (440 total calories, few sticks of gum and cinnamon Altoids (maybe 30 calories total), and Heather's fine soup (200 calories at best). Well, that's only 670, and not nearly enough. We solved the problem this evening be going to the Cold Stone Creamery for dessert. I dunno if I made 1200 or not, but I'm a lot closer than I otherwise would have been, and boy is that great ice cream.

Shan and I made tentative plans to see Lord of the Rings on Friday. That's dependent on me being able to bail on MacWorld (hopefully I will have seen all I need to see by then), and on Shan being able to cut out early from work. Don't know yet if we'll be able to swing it, but it'll be cool if we can.

Thanks to Shan and Heather for dinner and for the great evening (and on a school night, too!).