This Is L.A., Not Boston

Comic-Con 2008

2008-07-29T16:41:00.023-07:00

When I was a little middle school boy, obsessed with Wolverine, Jim Lee, and all things Marvel, one of my dreams was to attend Comic-Con in San Diego. I'd read about it in Wizard magazine -- fellow nerds dressed up as their favorite superheroes/villains, rows and rows of cool merchandise, and the rare opportunity to shake your favorite artist or writer's hand and get an autograph to boot.

Well, now I'm old. I don't read comic books anymore. I no longer aspire to be a comic book artist. While I can appreciate the effort and detail put into actually making a costume, I find that the people who wear them are a little disturbing. And merchandise? What can't I find on ebay, google, or scour? Ah, but San Diego is so close and my roommate was kind of enough to get me a shiny industry pass.

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We planned on leaving Los Angeles between 7:00 am - 7:30 am and arriving in San Diego sometime around 9:00. Of course we got a late start and ended up in the city around 10:00 am.

The first panel that we wanted to check out was for the upcoming Watchmen movie. Panels are like the meat of the convention -- forums where the creative element hold court, tell stories, and answer questions from fans. And (most importantly) show preview footage of upcoming releases and hand out free swag.

The Watchmen panel started at 11:55 am in the biggest hall the San Diego Convention Center had to offer. Lining up only an hour or so before wasn't going to cut it:

This line snaked up and down, to and fro, all the live long day.

Lesson learned: getting into any panels that were worth checking out would require at least two hours of wait time. Probably more like three or four.

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If you're not checking out panels, you're walking the convention floor. At your own risk. Dodging giant fake swords and guns, whiffs of B.O., baby strollers, and assholes on Segways we perused all the merchandise that the convention had to offer. And perusing is about all we did. Between the three of us, I think we spent about $30 on merchandise. I was very tempted to drop $25 on a glow-in-the-dark Bender piggy bank.

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Costumes make up a major portion of the Con -- the Heath Ledger Joker was predictably popular. An Imperial militia could be made up from all the Stormtroopers, Darth Vaders, and Boba Fetts that were present.

Some character I'm not familiar with (Maverick?) and a chubby Iron Man

I thought there'd be more babes, of both the booth and costumed variety. Sadly, babes were few and far between. But here's a gaggle of Slave Princess Leias:

(I stole this image from someone else's Flickr)

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In conclusion:

-Panels are the way to go (we ended up attending a few, which were fun and informative), but be prepared to wait in line for up to five hours to get into the GOOD stuff. I had planned on attending panels for Futurama, Watchmen, Terminator 4, Kevin Smith, Judd Apatow, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Joss Whedon, World of Warcraft, and The Office. We ended up getting into only one of those.

-Tons and tons of cool merchandise to waste your money on. However, I actually exhibited some self-control and only ended up spending $5 on a Star Wars magnet. Also, note to vendors -- official Comic-Con t-shirts were sold out on the second day. PRINT MORE SHIRTS.

-Roommate's brother had a great suggestion -- in addition to all the keychains, posters, and bags they hand out, maybe Axe or some other deodorant company should hand out free samples. Breathmints would be good too.

It's over!

2008-06-18T10:13:00.002-07:00

What, they never heard him sing before?

2008-03-13T12:39:00.002-07:00

From Wiki:

Though never released as a single, [Slaves & Bulldozers] has been applauded for Chris Cornell's outstanding vocals on it. Producer Rick Rubin played the song for the former instrumentalist members of Rage Against the Machine, to showcase Cornell's strong vocal ability before he joined them to form Audioslave.

On a semi-related note, I was listening to a wicked Tom Morello solo and wondered why the Grammy's rarely reward individual instrumentalists. The always shitty Grammy Awards pick a Best Male and Female Vocal performance for various genres and they also have the vague Best Rock Instrumental Performance. How about separate awards for the guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboardist, et al? I know the Grammy's are mostly about glorifying pop-centric front men/women -- maybe they can hand these awards out the night before, a la the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards.

It's over.

2008-02-04T20:54:00.002-08:00

Good bye, immortality. No perfect season. More importantly, no Super Bowl championship. It was supposed to be the greatest season in NFL history. There was supposed to be a validating end to an amazing, controversial, exciting, tumultuous, hard fought, highly scrutinized, awe-inspiring season.

Nope.

Unlike last year, I can wait for a new season to start. This one will sting for a while.

The Godfather of Green

2006-10-29T11:23:00.001-08:00

938 victories. 9 NBA championships. The architect of the greatest franchise in professional basketball, the Godfather of the NBA, the greatest coach in league history. There are three coaches with more wins (Lenny 'I also have the most losses in league history' Wilkens, Pat 'Backstabber' Riley, and Don 'I was a Celtic so I don't incur the ire of the author' Nelson) and another with the same amount of championships (Phil 'I act like I invented modern basketball coaching when in fact I swooped in on already good teams and Tex Winter was the one who actually implemented the triangle offense' Jackson), but nobody came close to combining Red Auerbach's strategy, gamesmanship, scouting, and love of Chinese food. The stories are legendary:

-Red and Celtics owner Walter Brown traded two All-Stars, Cliff Hagan and Easy Ed Macauley, and two weeks worth of Ice Capades shows (which Brown owned) to the St. Louis Hawks for the draft rights to Bill Russell, the anchor of 11 championship teams.

-In need of a new center after Russell retired, Auerbach sought a replacement through the 1970 draft. Russell recommended that he take a look at Florida State center Dave Cowens. Although undersized at 6'9", Cowens was an excellent rebounder and defender. Red had yet to see him play in person, but he knew that any player he scouted would suddenly move up on his rivals' draft charts. He traveled to a game, stayed for ten minutes, then left grumbling about what a waste of time the excursion had been. Other scouts at the game noted Red's early exit, and quickly wrote off Cowens. In fact, Red had seen plenty and later drafted Cowens, making him the lynchpin of the 70's championship teams.

-The Greatest Trade in NBA History.

-Auerbach pulled out all kinds of tricks for home games. If the weather was hot, he'd instruct the equipment manager to crank up the heat in the visitor's locker room. On the many cold winter days, the windows would be left open, the heat turned off, and wet towels were left for opponents. These less than savory acts and Red's penchant for showing off didn't endear him to opponents. The franchise that the Celtics tormented the most, the Lakers, certainly didn't appreciate his antics. Today's Los Angeles Times article on his passing started off with:

"It was bad enough that the Lakers never beat the Boston Celtics, a string of words Jerry Buss once called "the most odious sentence in all of sport." But did Red Auerbach always have to rub their noses in it?"

As a Celtics fan who grew up in the era of Dino Radja, A.C. Earl, and Greg Minor, it's tough to imagine a time when the Celtics vied with the Yankees for the distinction of being most successful franchise in American pro sports -- 11 out of 13 titles from 1957 to 1969 (including 8 in a row and a 7-0 record against the Lakers in series that mattered), 16 championships in all. But unlike the Yankees, the Celtics always had that tangible, physical presence of the man who started everything. Red Auerbach was the patriarch of a dynasty, a cigar smoking reminder to young 'uns like me that, yes, Celtic glory was a real thing.

It's funny cause it's true.

2006-09-21T17:01:00.001-07:00

Fry: So you're saying these aren't the decaying ruins of New York in the year 4000?
Professor Farnsworth: You wish. You're in Los Angeles.
Fry: But there was this gang of ten-year-olds with guns.
Leela: Exactly. You're in L.A.
Fry: But everyone is driving around in cars shooting at each other.
Bender: That's L.A. for you.
Fry: But the air is green and there's no sign of civilization whatsoever.
Bender: He just won't stop with the social commentary.
Fry: And the people are all phonies. No one reads. Everything has cilantro on it...

(I can't believe I haven't posted a damn thing in two months. I'll try and update with something soon...)

A Boring Poker Story.

2006-07-07T12:35:00.001-07:00

From my recent trip to the Hawaiian Gardens Casino:

My first foray to a casino in California. I went with my friend Robin, who was visiting from San Diego. He assured me that the poker games at Hawaiian Gardens were easy to beat. The game of choice was No Limit Hold 'Em, $20 max buy-in, with $1 blinds. With blinds that high in relation to the buy-in, $20 could go very fast. It sounded like a game designed to part casual players from their twenty bucks.

The casino is located near Long Beach, which is about thirty minutes from Los Angeles. The place is pretty nondescript -- none of the glitz or sheen of Vegas, or even Foxwoods. The poker room itself is pretty large and the tables are spaced out nicely. Most of the residents in the area are Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese, and as such most of the staff and half of the customers are Asian. Robin and I didn't have to wait long for a seat. We were seated at neighboring tables.

I sat down and bought my $20 worth of shitty chips -- thin clay composites with little heft. At first I had to battle nerves. It had been a while since I played No Limit at a casino, and that session ended with me getting busted in 20 minutes. I had been way too concerned with outplaying my opponents and 'getting fancy' when I should have realized a few things:

1. At the lowest levels of poker, people don't recognize moves and generally play straight forward poker.
2. There are a lot of people just looking to mess around and have fun.
3. I'm really not good enough to outplay too many people.

Now that I understood these things, I decided just to play straight forward poker, almost as if this were a Limit game.
Problem was, I wasn't catching anything in the early going. Lots of garbage like 4-9 and 3-8. The few times I had a so-so hand, somebody would raise it up and I'd have to dump. People were raising and calling with very speculative hands too. After an hour or so, I had to rebuy. Robin, after some initial victories, eventually lost his original buy-in too. He decided to call it a day and got a ride from a friend.*

Around that time things started turning around. Some of the wilder players had left the table, allowing for more limping (calling the big blind). I started catching cards and hitting flops. Pretty soon I had doubled my money. My confidence was high and I started feeling very comfortable at the table.

Then I was dealt pocket aces on the button.

A few people limped in and action was on me. I raised it up five times the big blind ($5), having the best starting hand and the best position. The older gent in the big blind, who was dubbed 'Mr. Slowplay' by another player, smooth called my raise and everybody else folded.

The flop: 2s 3s 4h

Looked harmless enough. Mr. Slowplay checked. I fired out a $5 bet and he called. Since Mr. Slowplay generally liked to play drawing hands, I figured he had a spade flush draw. Very poor judgment on my part.

The turn: A of hearts

I now had a set (three of a kind) of Aces. The only hand that could beat mine at this point was a straight. He checked again. I wanted to end the hand right here and bet out $10. Mr. Slowplay very calmly went all in. I stopped and thought about it. Maybe he hit a straight holding pocket 5's. Maybe he was still on his flush draw and was semi-bluffing by coming over the top. Maybe he has AK, AQ, or AJ. What made the most sense to me was that he had pocket 2's, 3's, or 4's -- he had his own set, figured that I had something like AK or AQ and would call his all-in now that I had a hand. If by some deranged miracle he had a straight, I had a very slim chance of making a full house or quads if the board paired on the river. Since he had more chips than I did, I called with my remaining $40.

The river: 7 of diamonds

I flipped over my aces. The table oohed and aahed. Mr. Slowplay, with a weird smile, turned over 5-6 of diamonds, giving him the nuts -- a 7 high straight. One could construe his action as a slowroll -- I called his raise, therefore he has to show first and he had the nuts. In a fit of rage, I grabbed my chips and flung them in his direction, then berated him for calling a big raise with 5-6. Actually, I tapped the table and said 'nice hand.' Mr. Slowplay/Slowroll had one of the best hands to go up against Aces or any other premium hand (granted, he was still an overwhelming underdog before the flop with roughly a 23% chance of winning). He had played the hand well and trapped me. It's poker.

*If Robin had stuck it out for a little while longer, he could've been involved in the Badbeat Jackpot that took place at his table. A lot of big poker rooms have Badbeat Jackpots and they work thusly: the casino will set a certain hand as the minimum for the badbeat. At Hawaiian Gardens it's Aces full of Tens (a fullhouse with A-A-A-10-10). If you have Aces full of Tens or better and get beat by either a better fullhouse (say, A-A-A-J-J or higher), quads (four of a kind), or a straight flush, then the Badbeat Jackpot gets paid out. The Jackpot depends on the day of the week and the time of day -- when the Jackpot hit it was around $9000. The winner gets 20% of the Jackpot along with the pot, the loser gets 60%, and the rest of the table splits the remaining 20%.

The player who sat in Robin's seat had A-7 and the player to the left of him had 10-something. The board was A A A 10 4. Four Aces beating Aces full of Tens. If Robin had stayed and played that hand, he would've won at least $1800 as the winner. $1800 at a $20 table!

This could've been Robin, divided by about 4100

Omaha Highs / Lows

2006-06-23T17:41:00.001-07:00

Random stuff:

-I really miss being able to turn on the tube at 7:00 to watch the Sox. However, as one of the premier franchises in baseball, they get their fair share of national coverage. I scheduled all of their national tv games into my phone's calendar. Because of the time difference, I woke up at 9:30 last Saturday morning, eager to catch the Fox game against the Phillies. Of course, since it's Saturday morning here in California, they aired cartoons instead. Fucking little kids.

On the flipside, I get to see the Dodgers everyday. Actually, I don't really give a shit about the Dodgers right now, but it warms my heart to see Nomar hitting line drives into the gap again. Derek Lowe's doing well. Grady Little can still go to hell.

That crazy bat speed is back.

Speaking of the National League, nothing like the Senior Circuit to get a nice eight game winning streak going.

-Saturday night I went to my first Hollywood bar -- the Three of Clubs. It's one of the bars featured in 'Swingers' ("This place is dead anyway"). The place is trendy enough that it doesn't need a proper sign out front, just a little neon lettering that says 'Cocktails' and a nondescript black door. Inside it's disorientingly dark, loud and cramped. Being the crazy party guy that I am, I left after an hour.

-The job hunt goes slowly. I signed up with a temp agency the other day, but so far no calls. With so much free time, I've been playing a lot of online poker. I used to exclusively play Hold 'Em cash games, but recently I expanded my game to include tournaments and Omaha. The beginning of the week started out fantastically. I placed 2nd and 3rd in two freerolls (that is, free tournaments that give out cash prizes), winning about $60, made a little money off Hold 'Em, and turned a cautious $5 buy-in at an Omaha table into $60. I started feeling pretty good about my game, until yesterday. Suddenly I couldn't win anything. Hands wouldn't hold up on the river, my draws stopped hitting. Just when I thought I had this game figured out...

Adventures in Apartment Hunting

2006-05-29T10:10:00.002-07:00

I haven't had to look for an apartment in years (thanks Mom and Dad!), so I was pretty rusty. And even back then I had Mom the realtor to help me out (thanks Mom!). Out here in LA, I was pretty much on my own. My future roommate James is gainfully employed from 9-6, which meant that during the week I'd have to fly solo. I originally thought that finding a decent place in a decent neighborhood within our price range wouldn't be that difficult, considering that Los Angeles is such a transient city and that we were looking right around the time when school gets out. Despite these two factors in our favor, it wasn't all that easy.

-Commuting is a bitch. The infamous LA freeways. They're fucking terrible. With no traffic, the trip from Long Beach to West LA usually takes 30-40 minutes. During rush hour, you can take those time estimates and double or even triple them. It once took me 2 1/2 hours. The sheer number of cars overwhelms the freeway and we all lurch and stop at a brisk 10 mph, baking in the sun. I once made the mistake of having the windows down and the arm out. My left arm is well done, while my right arm is still medium.

Music only satisfies for so long. I miss you, Glenn Ordway, Holley and Grandmaster Dale.

There used to be a sign in Boston, at the traffic snarl where 93 meets Storrow Drive, that read 'If you lived here, you'd be home by now.' I feel like they should put these up every ten miles on the freeway.

-Where the hell am I going? I didn't really have a clue as to which neighborhoods and areas were acceptable. I knew some major streets from past visits, but wasn't sure how they all connected. That's why they made the handy dandy Thomas Guide book of maps. It's an extremely detailed tome of all of Los Angeles County, from the Valley down to Long Beach. It's a godsend. It also helps that LA is kind of on a grid.

-Realtors suck. They almost never answer the phone. They almost never return phone calls. When they do, it's three days after the fact. Most of the time they don't bother telling me which property it is, as if their listing was the only one on my list. Anyway, fuck 'em. Didn't have to use any realtors this time around.

-Neighborhoods can differ greatly from one block to the next. It's strange. There's little progression from one area to another. We looked at one place in an entirely working class Mexican neighborhood. We walked one block up to look at another apartment, and suddenly we were in white yuppieville. The one block made that much difference. As such, expectations for a neighborhood based on address alone isn't going to cut it.

-Dude, where's my fridge? For some reason that I completely cannot understand, most apartments don't have refrigerators. You have to buy your own. When you move out, you take it with you or sell it. I'm wondering who the hell came up with this idea. I started imagining that Los Angelinos customized their fridges like they were hotrods or something. Black carbon doors. Chrome piping. A rear mounted spoiler. 5.1 surround sound. With options like those, I could see why you'd drag it from place to place. But that isn't the case. On the plus side, most apartments only require first month's rent and a security deposit.

-The eye candy from Beverly Hills to Hollywood is mouth watering.

-The city itself isn't all that nice to look at. The blue skies and palm trees are cool, but for a city obsessed with street cleaning and lawn maintenance, it looks run down and dirty.

-After a week of looking, getting lost, not having phone calls returned, and realizing that I'll need sunblock if I don't want to get super tan, I finally found a place. It's an area called Palms, which is south of Beverly Hills and east of Santa Monica. That means for LA, it's relatively cool in temperature, as Santa Monica is the beach. Being south of Beverly Hills means that it's relatively quiet and safe. Now that a place has been secured, the next step is scavenging all of the IKEA furniture from the fleeing college students. And finding out where I can pimp my fridge.

I want spinning rims.

This Is Boston, Not LA

2006-05-15T12:58:00.001-07:00

As I sit in sunny Long Beach, waiting for my car to be delivered, here are a few things that I'll miss about home:

-Stump Trivia at Joe Sent Me. The Tuesday ritual. It took a while, but it was finally a place for me where people knew who the hell I was when I came in. What I liked to drink. What I liked to eat. Cute, familiar waitresses. The best trivia jockey in the biz. And many well played games by the team. I wish we had kept track of the winnings over the years.

-Sports. The stereotype is that Californians don't really have to care all that much about professional sports because there's so much to do all the time. Why bother rooting for a team that could crush your spirits when you could just go to the beach? Then again, lax interest in baseball around here means that I could get bleacher tickets on the day of the game for probably $10.

I'll also miss WEEI, obnoxious warts and all. It was the loud background chatter to my day.

One other thing: I'm not looking forward to getting up at 10:00 am on Sundays to watch the Pats play.

-The seasons. Man, I'll miss the seasons. I won't miss the torrential rain that's been coming down on New England this past week, but I'm gonna miss the fall, when the air is cool and crisp and you can smell the leaves for the last time. I'm gonna miss the winter and the cold, cold air. The beginning of spring -- what Massachusetts has of it -- when baseball starts and the sky is sunny and blue. Out here in California the weather is great 90% of the time. I find that a little boring.

-Dunkin Donuts.

-The Bull & Finch. Ah, what a place. Remember that time when Norm sat there and drank beer? Or when Woody was dumb or Sam was charmingly incorrigible? Oh wait, I hate Cheers.

-Most of all, I'll miss my very excellent friends and my terrific family. Stay well guys, and I'll see you all in September. Until then, Qapla'.

Team Korea

2006-03-14T08:41:00.001-08:00

I usually get pretty excited about the start of spring training. A new season, with maybe some new big guns, a new outlook and another chance at the Series. Then I quickly remember that it's spring training. Ah, but this year we get something different -- the World Baseball Classic. Instead of that split squad game against BC, baseball fans are treated to games featuring powerhouses like the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and the United States. Once past the flotsam of Round 1 (Italy, Australia, South Africa, the Netherlands, China), the blowouts have been infrequent and the intensity has been refocused.

But while the big boys slug it out, only one unlikely team has remained undefeated -- Team Korea. Korea (the South, not North) was predicted to advance past the first round, thanks to some major league players (Chan Ho Park, Byung Hyun Kim, Hee Seop Choi) and with experience on par with Japan. Korea beat Japan in an emotionally charged last game of Round 1 thanks to a dramatic, 8th inning two run homer by Seung Yeop Lee and haven't looked back since. They've been winning thanks to a few reasons:

-Team Korea is built on defense and pitching. They knew they wouldn't be able to out slug the Latin American or North American teams, so instead they've focused on the fundamentals. Almost every position player is a Gold Glover in Asia. Their outfielders are always positioned well and get great jumps, while the infield, particularly shortstop Jin Man Park, is very surehanded. They can all bunt and they run the bases well. The pitchers are a mix of Korea's best, from the Asian and US major leagues.

-They're fortunate to be playing in Pool 1. Team USA has really underperformed and Mexico isn't that good. Japan is without most of its best players (Hideki Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi, Kaz Matsui, Shigetoshi Hasegawa). We'll see what happens when they go up against the Dominican's slugging lineup or Venezuela's power pitching.

-Chan Ho Park got his mojo back. At least, one inning at a time. For the WBC he's been Korea's closer, and whether it's due to the shorter outings or national pride, Park has pitched very well. Once one of MLB's better starting pitchers, his career went down the tubes after signing a monster contract with Texas. His fastball, once in the mid 90's, slowed to 88-90 mph. His control slipped. Pop flies that were harmless outs in Dodger Stadium became home runs in Arlington. Injuries didn't help matters. Now he's back to throwing 93-94 mph for Team Korea. His stats: 5.0 innings / 5 K's / 3 saves / 0.00 ERA. His resurgence also means I don't have to watch Byung Hyun Kim close out games.

-1B Seung Yeop Lee has been clutch. Starting with the game against Japan, Lee has hit the deciding homer in each game. While most of the other hitters are strictly pesky contact guys, Lee provides the production. His stats so far: .471 AVG. / 5 HR / 10 RBI, with an .OPS of 1.877. Known as the 'Lion King' in Asia, he set the single season Asian record for home runs with 56 in 2003. Although he's been to a couple of spring training camps with MLB clubs, Lee never felt they took him seriously. As the announcers keep saying, maybe this time they'll give him a closer look and a little bit more respect.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine Team Korea playing so well. When Round 2 started, Korea was easily the least talented of the 8 teams. Their contributions to MLB so far had been a fading former All-Star (Park), a disgraced former closer (Kim), an underachieving slugger (Choi), some so-so pitchers (Jae Seo, Sunny Kim, Jung Bong) and ThunderStix. But so far fundamentally sound baseball and some luck have made for a winning combination and I'm enjoying the ride.

White Noise!

2006-02-22T10:03:00.002-08:00

At long last, my brother Byron's mini EP is finished. While not exactly in disc form yet, you can take a listen at their website. They've come a long way from scratchy demos on cassette thanks to many hours of hard work, culminating in a fantastic set of songs. I'll be unabashed in my praise not only cause it's my bro, but also because they have a great sound -- hard alternative rock, with influences ranging from Radiohead to Metallica (with a lil bit of Beethoven sprinkled in), but resulting in a sound all their own.

White Noise will be competing in a Long Island Battle of the Bands this weekend (date to be determined -- check their website), so if you happen to be in the area, show 'em your support!

My bro Byron is a blur of blue banging on brums. Drums.

'Firefly'

2006-01-31T09:23:00.001-08:00

Ever since Deep Space Nine descended into galactic warfare and The X-Files went crappy, I haven't had a good sci-fi show to watch. I never got into Voyager. Enterprise, despite ostensibly being set in the Star Trek universe, felt more like a bad syndicated wannabe. So how did I end up missing Firefly, Joss Whedon's shortlived series on Fox?

Firefly is a great hodge podge of genres -- science fiction, western, noir, screwball comedy. The show's world is cobbled together from Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Dune, and Blade Runner -- our hero, Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Han Solo) leads the crew of Serenity, a Firefly-class transport ship (Millenium Falcon). A veteran from the losing side of the Unification War (Rebel Alliance), Mal and his crew eke out a living on the outskirts of the known universe, where the worlds look suspiciously like the frontier of westerns (Tatooine and the like). Smuggling and robbery are their bread and butter, but they have to do it under the radar of the shiny Alliance (Federation) and its military branch (Starfleet). Corporatocracy rules the day (Alien) and the government, which is a union of the United States and China. This marriage of cultures is best represented through their everyday speech, where English is heavily punctuated with Chinese curses and phrases (Blade Runner's 'gutter speech').

Sci-fi nowadays is dominated by shallow homages to greater works (like, y'know, the recent Star Wars movies), but Firefly sets itself apart because it examines the genre's core stories that often get crowded with giant space battles and special effects -- what does it mean to be human? What is progress? Who is good and who is evil? The Alliance, although antagonists to the crew of Serenity, isn't necessarily evil. They believe wholeheartedly in their intent to civilize the known world. But what about those who don't want to be civilized? What if 'freedom' and 'progress' mean different things to the people of the outer rim? Mal robs for a living, but does stealing from the rich and corporate make it morally expedient? The lines are always blurry in the deep reaches of space, where sometimes survival supersedes morality.

While it may sound all very high handed, the show is very well grounded in its cast of characters. Despite only having fourteen episodes and one feature, Firefly managed to have wondrous, subtle growth in its characters. They're less archetypes than fully realized people, giving us nine faces to identify with. I was excited to see where Whedon was taking these people, but unfortunately Fox once again fucked with a great thing (see: Undeclared and Arrested Development). The two hour pilot, which only introduces all of the characters and establishes the Firefly universe, was scrapped in favor of a more 'action-packed' episode. Most of the show was aired out of order, and three of the last four episodes didn't even make it that far. But there is some glimmer of hope, as the feature Serenity was received well enough to perhaps merit a sequel or two. Here's to hoping.

*A couple of small gripes:
-In a solar system populated by an alliance of the US and China, how come there aren't any Chinese characters (people, not hanzi) on the show? Or at the very least tons of half-Asian people? Off the top of my head, I can only recall one Asian character with a speaking part, and she was (literally) a whore. Maybe they were going to build the TransGalactic Railroad in the next season.

-Sometimes Whedon takes the western part of the show a bit too far. I can't help but think that if you were flipping through the channels and happened upon Firefly without knowing what it was, you might think that you've stumbled into The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (another good cancelled Fox show). There's cattle rustling, six shooters, Stetson hats, and county sheriffs aplenty. A little too hokey for me.

Secession.

2006-01-25T14:32:00.002-08:00

I was reading a Wikipedia article on various proposals for state secession in US history, and found this bit of info funny:

Kentucky

In the 1950s, Letcher County, Kentucky threatened to secede from the state, demanding better roads in the area.
The threats subsided when Governor A.B. Chandler indicated that he didn't care.

That's one way to end a squabble, I guess.

I love ya Netflix.

2006-01-13T09:05:00.002-08:00

I signed up for Netflix a week ago and have been on a movie kick ever since. Some short reviews:

'Violent Cop'

I'm a big fan of Takeshi Kitano (aka Beat Takeshi), the Clint Eastwood/Lee Marvin of Japan. Known for his laconic tough guys from both sides of the law (cops and yakuza), 'Violent Cop' is his directorial debut. It showcases the Takeshi style: long, quiet takes, doses of absurd and silly humor, Japanese fatalism, and flashes of jarring violence. Not his best work (see 'Fireworks' and 'Sonatine'), but worth checking out.
'Chungking Express'

It took me forever to finally see this movie. I'm ashamed that I didn't watch it sooner. A beautiful film about love and loneliness in a big city, Quentin Tarantino apparently cried through his first viewing. Not because it made him sad, but because he was "just so happy to love a movie this much." It's one of those rare films that successfully evokes emotion and mood through style and technique. Faye Wong just owns this movie.
'Memories of Murder'

The film takes place in 1986, based on true events about South Korea's first serial killer. With so many criminal procedural shows on t.v. , most of us are familiar with modern forensic science. Well, these murders take place in a rural, backwoods town, where something like DNA testing is a distant luxury available only in the US. Clumsy and imprecise, the detectives rely instead on legwork, common sense, and beating the shit out of suspects. And for a flick about a serial rapist/murderer, there are a lot of laughs.
This movie was a nice departure from the usual South Korean fare of silly romantic comedies, ridiculous melodrama, and hyper violence. Which leads us to...
'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance'

Park Chan-wook's first installment of his 'Vengeance' trilogy, 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance' is a stylish and disturbing examination into two related stories of revenge. Song Kang-ho, also the star of 'Memories of Murder,' gives another fine performance as a father driven by, um, vengeance. Revenge. Revengeance?
As the installments are only related in theme and not story, I would recommend the excellent second film, 'Oldboy,' over this one. Park goes for broke, ramping up the operatic tragedy to excruciating, grisly heights. Just like I ramped up the pomposity in that last sentence.
'Croupier'

A good modern noir film. Watching this movie, you can see why everybody pegged Clive Owen as the next Bond -- Cool, confident, smart, has his way with three women, handily wins a streetfight, loves vodka, and he wears a tux throughout most of it. Then you watch 'King Arthur,' and you suddenly don't understand at all.
'Serenity'

A Joss Whedon feature length sci-fi flick born out of the cancelled Fox show 'Firefly'. Essentially a sci-fi western, 'Serenity' throws in an EPIC plot to stir things up -- Summer, a waify, mentally troubled psychic, knows a secret that'll bring down the monolithic Alliance. But can the crew of the Serenity evade the peerless, nameless Alliance assassin and the cannibalistic, subhuman Reavers? And can our reluctant hero, Captain Mal, keep his dysfunctional family of a crew together for the long haul? What's up with these stupid questions? Ah, just watch the damn movie. It's really good.
'Hustle & Flow'

It was okay. Rags to almost riches story, kind of like the first 'Rocky'. Terrence Howard, who seems to be in everything these days, kicks ass though.
'The Constant Gardener'

A love story disguised as a socio-political thriller. Or is it the other way around? I liked it, but was pretty annoyed with some early, manipulative story contrivances. Like 'Syriana,' it tries to shed light on Western profiteering at the expense of the Third World. Oil is replaced with medicine, which makes it all the more nefarious. After all, free or cheap medicine is supposed to be beneficial, right? But there's always a catch with charity. Rachel Weisz is vibrant, as usual.

The dumbest thing I've seen today.

2006-01-06T13:42:00.003-08:00

A beat up Toyoto Corolla with nice, shiny spinner rims in the rear, and no hubcaps in the front.

"There can be only one..."

2006-01-04T10:26:00.001-08:00

Woohoo. I won the smoking contest. I am presently the only person among my group of friends who still smokes. Alex kicked the habit a year ago. Augie quit last month. Aaron and Jon are now done thanks to New Year's resolutions. That leaves me, the Connor Macleod of smokers. I now have the distinction of being the only asshole from our group to suffocate a room with the residuals from a quick smoke. Seriously though, I commend them all. It ain't easy.

Of course, I know smoking is very, very bad for me. I'm starting to feel the ill effects: super exhaustion in the morning, circulatory problems. I vowed last autumn to start scaling back from a pack a day to half that. I wanted to work my way down from twenty to ten to five and then maybe to just a couple when drinking. That plan lasted all of one week. But as the world becomes less smoker friendly and my friends hang up their Bics, I guess the writing's on the wall -- I have to move to Canada.

Seven chipmunks twirling on a branch...

2005-12-20T13:21:00.002-08:00

Thanks to Jon for the tag.

1. 'Get on the Snake' -- Soundgarden (Louder Than Love)

Cornell in Louder Than Live: "This song is from a movie that nobody saw." I have no idea what the lyrics mean, beyond any sexual innuendo, but they seem to be one of the first examples of Cornell fooling around with nonsensical lyrics for the sake of rhyming:

Get on the snake / Where the metal river bleeds
Get on the snake / Where you never will believe
Hey baby, what's your disease?
My heart's bleeding / I'm dying to leave

Sweet, bendy riff. And it's in 9/4 time (guitarist Kim Thayil: "You can't dance to it, but it sort of sneaks up on you anyway.").

2. 'Kill/Ride' medley -- MetallicA (Live)

A staple of their live shows in the late 90's, the medley seamlessly combines six songs from their first two albums (Kill 'Em All and Ride The Lightning) -- 'Ride the Lightning,' 'No Remorse,' 'Hit the Lights,' 'The Four Horsemen,' 'Phantom Lord,' and 'Fight Fire With Fire.' My favorite version is from the concert video Cunning Stunts, which substitutes 'Phantom Lord' with 'Seek and Destroy'. A concise and kickass way of running through their earlier, groundbreaking material.

3. 'No Shelter' -- Rage Against The Machine (Godzilla soundtrack)

Commerford's sly bass line, like a heartbeat, introduced RATM v3.0. Every one of their albums showed extraordinary growth as they evolved from a marriage of hard rock/metal and rap into an organic, grooving, hip-hop rock beast. This song set the agenda for their last two albums (Battle of Los Angeles and Renegades) and stands as the only good thing to ever come out of the Godzilla remake.

4. 'Curse' -- Meliah Rage (The Deep and Dreamless Sleep)

From their latest effort, The Deep and Dreamless Sleep, Boston-based Meliah Rage throws their old thrash fans a bone. 'Curse' is fast, heavy, loud, and a little bit ugly -- different from their leaner, more accessible modern sound. The lyrics are ham-fisted ("Nothing lasts forever/Better or for worse/Nothing lasts forever/Living is a curse"), but heavy metal's not known for its subtlety.

5. 'I Might Be Wrong' -- Radiohead (Amnesiac)

The opening yawns like a slow morning, with soft, ringing notes. The quiet is then cut in by a slinky, yet bouncy bass line that dominates the rhythm, giving the song a touch of electronic dance music, which is then contrasted by Yorke's quiet murmuring vocals. The outro temporarily shifts the mood and rhythm -- quiet arpeggios and Yorke's subdued yearning -- only to have that hypnotizing bass line return to show us the way out. Like a lot of Radiohead's later stuff, its a strange mix of styles, but they always seem to be able to make it their own (or they ripped off somebody else -- I'm just not well informed enough to know).

6. 'Down' -- Pearl Jam (Riot Act B-Side / Lost Dogs)

Dedicated to Howard Zinn, 'Down' is one of the most upbeat, uplifting songs Pearl Jam has written. The first half talks of desperation, addiction, hopelessness, and self pity. "Cry me a river," Eddie sings, "All's for naught." But instead of wallowing the lyrics in gloom and doom music, you can tell from the beginning that this song is different -- driving opening chords, the uptempo backbeat, the major chord progression. The second half is all about redemption:

Rise -- life is in motion, I'm stuck in line / Oh rise -- you can't be neutral on a moving train.
If hope could grow from dirt like me / It can be done.
Won't let the light escape from me / Won't let the darkness swallow me.

Instead of railing against the world, here they try and comfort and reassure, and it's a nice change of pace.

7. 'Lifeless Dead' -- Mad Season (Above)

A side project featuring Layne Staley (Alice in Chains), Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees), and Baker, Mad Season is one of the best collaborations to come out of the 'grunge' era. A lot of their music came from improvisation and jamming, creating a very organic sound for a hard rock band. 'Lifeless Dead' is actually one of the least improvisational, employing a rather standard rock structure, but the tone, hazy ambience, and Staley's slightly atonal harmonies put the song askance.
Three members of the band, Staley, McCready, and Baker, were either recovering or active addicts of alcohol and drugs, and their one and only album, Above, deals mostly with struggle and quiet acceptance of responsibility. Sadly, Staley and Baker both died from drug overdoses, while McCready made a full recovery. This album stands as the last great work of Staley.

'Revenge of the Sith' = 'Backstroke of the West'

2005-12-17T09:51:00.002-08:00

Despite being hyper sensitive to mockery of things Asian, I have to admit that Engrish is pretty damn funny. In the spirit of Jamie's latest blog post, here's a website showcasing an almost literal English to Chinese back to English translation of 'Revenge of the Sith'.

Hot stove.

2005-12-08T10:26:00.001-08:00

So now that Theo's gone, Lucchino and company are cleaning house. 'Theo's guys' are being shipped out of town or given walking papers, amidst the craziest baseball off season since 2000 (the Year of the Bloated Free Agent Contracts). The Marlins just finished gutting their very talented team. The Phillies traded Big Bad Jim Thome out of town. Alfonso Soriano, traded away from Texas. Clemens, finally retired? The Blue Jays are actually spending money. And Manny might still be traded (nooooooooo...).

At the end of the 2005 season, the starting lineup of the Sox looked something like this:

C Jason Varitek
1B Kevin Millar/John Olerud
2B Tony Graffanino
3B Bill Mueller
SS Edgar Renteria
LF Manny Ramirez
CF Johnny Damon
RF Trot Nixon
DH David Ortiz

SP Curt Schilling
SP Matt Clement
SP Tim Wakefield
SP David Wells
SP Bronson Arroyo

Now we're looking at a rough draft like this:

C Varitek
1B ??? (Millar -- let go / Olerud -- retired)
2B Mark Loretta
3B Mike Lowell
SS ??? (See ya, Edgah)
LF Ramirez (for now)
CF ??? (Damon re-signs?)
RF Nixon (for now)
DH Ortiz

SP Josh Beckett
SP Schilling
SP Wakefield
SP Jon Papelbon
SP ??? (Wells likely gone / Clement might be gone)

A lot of question marks. A lot of rumors. By trading for Loretta, super prospect Dustin Pedroia is now going to sit in Pawtucket. Is he going to be traded away too? What happens to Youkilis? If they trade Manny, who's going to fill the production void? Troy Glaus? Will Damon re-sign? If he doesn't, then do they trade for Bobby Abreu? Can Lowell be his good ole .280/25/100 self? Do we have enough super glue for Beckett's blisters? Is Nomar coming back???

I love offseasons like this -- a massive shakeup to the status quo. To teams like the Mets, Cubs, and Blue Jays, this recent infusion of talent reinvigorates their hopes and chances. The White Sox are, for the time being, a force. The Indians are on the verge. The current superpowers, the Red Sox, Yankees, Angels, Cardinals, and Braves, are still around, while the Dodgers, A's, Twins, Astros, and Giants can still be factors.

How many more days until pitchers and catchers report?

Bump.

2005-12-08T10:11:00.001-08:00

...

$650.00 and going UP.

2005-11-16T11:29:00.003-08:00

You wanna piece of the GOD WARRIOR???

(warning: may be a bit loud for work)

Thank you, fark.com.

Holy shit.

2005-11-15T13:58:00.002-08:00

I can't believe this hasn't been done yet, or that I never even thought about it:

[ Star Wars Transforms: New toys are more than meets the Jedi ]

Speaking Good.

2005-11-11T09:29:00.002-08:00

Funny how, during Bush's Veteran's Day speech, the soldiers placed behind him were black, Asian, or female. A nice piece of 'strategery'. On that note, some website's top ten Bushisms (I know it's too easy, but whatever):

10. "I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport."

9. "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."

8. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

7. "There's no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons."

6. "There's an old...saying in Tennessee...I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says Fool me once...(3 second pause)... Shame on...(4 second pause)...Shame on you....(6 second pause)...Fool me...Can't get fooled again." (my personal favorite)

5. "See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."

4. "The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the -- the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."

3. "I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend."

2. "Wow! Brazil is big." after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

1. A TIE BETWEEN:
"Rarely is the question asked, 'Is our children learning'?"

"The illiteracy level of our children are appalling."

"Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?"

2005-11-11T07:24:00.002-08:00

Patrick Stewart.

2005-11-08T08:47:00.001-08:00

After that Monday Night Football debacle, I luckily flipped to a rerun of the Patrick Stewart SNL episode. 'Phil McCracken: Scottish Therapist' and the Sexy Cake Shop helped ease the pain. Also, maybe the greatest introduction of the musical act.

For those of you with HBO, check out the season finale of 'Extras' for a great Patrick Stewart cameo:

On the set of an Elizabethan drama, Andy pitches a sitcom pilot script to Patrick Stewart, who shares his own screenwriting story ideas (he plays a man with special powers who makes women's clothes disappear, after saving them in Iraq).

Stewart: "For instance I might be walking along and see a beautiful girl and think 'I wish I could see her naked'... and so her clothes fall off."

Music, Part 2.

2005-11-01T13:33:00.002-08:00

Check out my brother's band, White Noise! They've got a good sound and they're going places, so get on the bandwagon now. I'm proud of you, bro.

Music, Part 1.

2005-11-01T12:35:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I posted, thanks to Civilization IV. Anyway, I went to the Audioslave show at Lowell last night. My expectations were pretty tepid, due to a general lack of enthusiasm for their music, my growing antipathy towards going to shows, and seeing one of my idols, Chris Cornell, slowly fading from relevance and, it seemed, talent.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised. Some highlights:

-Cornell was 'on' from song one. His voice, raspy and off-key in these older days, was clear and powerful. I couldn't help but smile like a goofy bastard. He still knows how to work the crowd, although he's a lot less confrontational and sarcastic than he used to be. It's the kinder, gentler, older, tanner, soberer Chris Cornell.

-Morello being Morello. Guitar at his chest, fingers flying, feet stomping, pulling-the-power-cord-out-and-rubbing-them-over-the-strings-to-create-some-crazy-noise. I'll always marvel at his mastery of the guitar.

-Brad Wilk wearing a gorilla mask for most of the show.

-A choice selection of Soundgarden/Rage Against the Machine/Temple of the Dog songs. Disappointingly, the Soundgarden/Temple of the Dog reception was a little underwhelming. It seemed like only half of the audience recognized 'Rusty Cage'. I think five people recognized 'Slaves & Bulldozers' (two of them being me and Jon). The pop for RATM was crazy though. Probably the most fervent reaction of the night. Morello/Cummerford/Wilk were excellent playing Cornell's stuff. As for Cornell rapping...

-The first encore, which had solo, acoustic Cornell. Beautiful. The crowd kind of fell asleep though.

A couple of gripes:

-The crackhead couple in front of us who were way too enthusiastic about everything.

-There seemed to be too much of a concerted effort to play the 'hits'. It would've been nice to hear some Audioslave non-singles ('Yesterday to Tomorrow,' 'Give', 'Hypnotize'), although I generally did like the setlist. And I wouldn't have sacrificed any of the SG/RATM songs to hear them.

-Finding out from my brother, right before the show, that Theo resigned. With text messaging though, it's difficult to tell if he meant 're-signed' or 'resigned'. Unfortunately, it was the latter.

Jon, this one's for you...

2005-10-13T11:24:00.003-07:00

From the NY Post:

"From the cuisine that gave us tableside theatrics and conveyor-belt sushi comes Ninja, a Japanese import new to TriBeCa, with waiters who dress and act like Ninjas. Or at least they're trying to.

The "magic" bridge its publicists promised would "descend across a fog-covered river leading guests to their tables" wasn't working last weekend. Nor did Ninja warriors "spring up from hidden corners to surprise guests," which may have saved unsuspecting diners from spewing their sake.

Elegant, silk-covered scrolls are ceremoniously unfurled to reveal a menu listing "Main" lobster and "foie grass." But while some of the "new-style sushi" - eel with sweetened cream cheese, for instance - isn't for the faint of heart, it's the real thing, rolled by experts from Japan and served on artful ceramics and wood. As it should be, with tasting menus up to $200.

Kinks aside, Ninja is undeniably unique. The dimly lit labyrinth of stone-and-wood passages with private dining alcoves set behind dark lattice doors must be the only place in town where a server genuflects before your table.

There's also enough head-bowing to please the pickiest emperor, and enough piped-in sounds of trickling water to inspire a trip to the loo - to which a Ninja merrily leads the way in crouching, spinning spurts."

I wonder if these goofy bastards had anything to do with it.

"I think that's more saves than LaTroy Hawkins had this year."

2005-10-12T14:49:00.001-07:00

From fark.com:

"Nomar Garciaparra saves two women from drowning. A-Rod and Jeter said to be in good condition."

Best response on fark message board: "The way I heard this story was that Nomar saved two woman that were initially dropped by Renteria."

Give A-Rod the MVP.

2005-10-11T13:09:00.001-07:00

I've spent an inordinate amount of time today reading baseball message boards, and I can't find one Yankee fan coming to the defense of Alex Rodriguez. And why would they? .133 batting average in the postseason, no home runs, no RBI. A costly error that contributed to an Angels win in Game 2. Hitting into a double play in the top of the 9th inning, after Jeter did his part to get on base. It's ridiculously petty, but it's very, very enjoyable to read all these Yankee fans ranting about their MVP candidate. Almost all of them now acknowledge that Ortiz should win the hardware, defense be damned.

As a Red Sox fan, it would, of course, make me very happy if Ortiz won. A just reward for the fabulous, exciting season he had, despite the team's outcome. I just think it would be very amusing to see A-Rod win, if they presented him with the award on Opening Day of 2006, and be able to hear the cascade of boos rain down on him in Yankee Stadium. Or better yet, a smattering of tepid, polite applause (think Jackson Heights' own, Mr. Randy Watson of Sexual Chocolate).

Okay, I'm very petty and childish. Here's some more pettiness and childishness:

"Right now, somewhere in New York, a five-year-old kid is wondering if the Yankees will win a championship in his lifetime."
-- Dan Bock, Durham, N.C.

Freudian Slip.

2005-10-07T12:29:00.002-07:00

Just now, Wolf Blitzer: "...and President Bush appeals to the world's top dollar...top doctors..."

Gaffanino

2005-10-06T09:52:00.002-07:00

That was ugly. The only glimmer of hope is that the Sox have run the table (via outright sweep or with their backs against the wall) in their last five victorious post season series:

1999 Division Series
Down 0-2 to the Indians, the Sox take the next three, capped by the immortal Pedro Martinez pitching six no-hit innings out of the bullpen and Troy O'Leary going 'Way back!! WAAAAAAAAY BACK!!!!' Man, I miss Pedro.

2003 Division Series
Again, down 0-2, this time to the Oakland A's. A mix of clutchitude (Trot's extra inning two-run homer to center field in Game 3, Scott Williamson suddenly emerging as the fireman, David Ortiz beginning his transformation into Senor Octubre with the winning hit in Game 4) and ineptitude (Baserunning gaffes galore for the A's) allowed the Sox to storm back. Derek Lowe came out of the bullpen to strike out the last two batters, punctuated with his DX 'Suck It!!' crotch chop. Miguel Tejada was not amused.

2004 Division Series
Swept the Angels. Big Papi over the Monster.

2004 League Championship Series
Millar walks. Roberts steals. Mueller hits. Ortiz. Ortiz. Ortiz. Foulke. Schilling. The Greatest Collapse in History or the Greatest Comeback in History, depending on your allegiance, but history's written by the victors, bitches.

2004 World Series
The Cardinals had no chance in hell. Broom city.

Go Bush!

2005-10-05T09:53:00.001-07:00

Just heard on CNN that our very own President has a 1000-1 shot of winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Also, Bush has apparently nominated the diabolical Palpatine for the Supreme Cour t.

Good riddance / 'Ted Sarandis' = 'Satan is redd'

2005-10-05T08:39:00.001-07:00

Ted Sarandis is finally off the WEEI airwaves. Gone is the moralizing, his strange, creepy optimism and enthusiasm, and the college sports force feeding. He seemed to treat his show like a bully pulpit -- there was no actual discussion. Callers would have to grovel and kow tow to get any air time, or Ted would rudely speak over them and then summarily dismiss the contrarian by hanging up -- no opposing view points on his show.

He also didn't do his homework. Ted seemed to make up stats if they suited his argument or make vague generalizations without any basis. I remember one instance earlier in the season when the Oakland A's pounded the Sox 13-6. Immediately after the game, Ted tried to absolve the Sox pitching staff by claiming the A's were a great offensive team, despite the fact they ranked near the bottom of the league (at the time) in runs scored, batting average, slugging percentage, and on base percentage. I'd like to think that anybody who called up to point out his error was yelled at and hung up on.

What I'll miss are the occasional gems of his lunacy -- his flat and halting monotone delivery suddenly erupting into bombast when provoked.

"I'm not gonna talk to a jerk like you!!!"

"I don't get what's going on in your brain."

It's the end of an era (thank God).

John Havlicek...of the Patriots???

2005-10-02T12:01:00.001-07:00

I love Gil Santos and Gino Cappelletti, the Pats veteran radio announcing crew, but they're slowly descending into John Madden/Pat Summerall/Tim McCarver territory. It's barely into the second half of the game against the Chargers, and Santos has already called Mike Vrabel 'Steve' three times, while Cappelletti noted that Pats coach 'John Havlicek' was pacing down the sideline. Havlicek...Belichick...similar, I know. But c'mon guys, this is your own team!

Sign him now.

2005-09-29T08:48:00.001-07:00

I'm willing to bet that's some serious left-handed heat. I'm not so sure about Leia as pitching coach, though.

'Je me souviens' (Montreal 2005)

2005-09-27T12:59:00.001-07:00

I wish I took more pictures, especially when I travel, but I resist for two reasons:

1. I don't want to look like a tourist, even though it's pretty obvious that I am one. Pretty dumb reason. And it's not like I give a shit if I see a tourist in Boston snapping pics.

2. I don't want to look like Asian guy taking pics of everything, even though everybody takes pictures these days. Another pretty dumb reason.

Anyway, here are a few from the trip...

A corner of Saint Catherine's St. (the main commercial street of Montreal). On the right is the Much Music building.

There's a lot of interesting graffiti in the east end of Saint Catherine's, where all the punk kids hang out.

I wish I had a nicer camera or actual talent in photography, but I'd like to think this shot kind of sums up the city: Shiny and new, old and beautiful, naked chicks at strip clubs.

Like the previous photo, sans club danseuses.

"A Monument to Universal Justice."

2005-09-14T07:56:00.001-07:00

"The ethnically divided Bosnian city of Mostar has agreed to erect a new symbol of unity -- a statue of kung fu legend Bruce Lee, worshipped by Muslims, Serbs and Croats."

Kind of crazy, but really cool. (Saw this article on AngryAsianMan)

Bill Maher's New Rules:

2005-09-12T14:00:00.002-07:00

New Rule: America must recall the president. That's what this country needs. A good, old-fashioned, California-style recall election! Complete with Gary Coleman, porno actresses and action film stars. And just like Schwarzenegger's predecessor here in California, George Bush is now so unpopular, he must defend his job against...Russell Crowe. Because at this point, I want a leader who will throw a phone at somebody. In fact, let's have only phone throwers. Naomi Campbell can be the vice-president!

Now, I kid, but seriously, Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you: mission accomplished! Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?!

Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying that there's so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in...Please don't. I know, I know, there's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.

Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans...Maybe you're just not lucky!

I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, "Take a hint."

Cartoon.

2005-09-09T09:00:00.001-07:00

Carmina Burana? More like Carmina Bore-ama.

2005-09-08T17:47:00.001-07:00

Can we get a moratorium on playing 'Carmina Burana' at sporting events? Jesus.

Random Katrina stuff.

2005-09-08T16:44:00.001-07:00

I got the following articles from Andrew Sullivan's excellent blog:

From Slate :: How race shaped Bush's response to Katrina.

"Had the residents of New Orleans been white Republicans in a state that mattered politically, instead of poor blacks in city that didn't, Bush's response surely would have been different. Compare what happened when hurricanes Charley and Frances hit Florida in 2004. Though the damage from those storms was negligible in relation to Katrina's, the reaction from the White House was instinctive, rapid, and generous to the point of profligacy. Bush visited hurricane victims four times in six weeks and delivered relief checks personally. Michael Brown of FEMA, now widely regarded as an incompetent political hack, was so responsive that local officials praised the agency's performance."

From Halifax Live :: Canadians Arrived In New Orleans Five Days Before The U.S. Military.

They came all the way from fucking Vancouver and still beat FEMA and the National Guard.

From the Salt Lake Tribune :: Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA

"Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA."

Sign it!

2005-09-07T16:09:00.001-07:00

http://www.petitiononline.com/FEMA/petition.html

Musings.

2005-09-05T12:32:00.001-07:00

From Peggy Hill's collection of unused/unusable 'Musings':

"Lots of cookies will make you fat."

"Sunburn, too much of a good thing."

"Give a donkey the chance and he will bite you in the ass."

"Mix pineapple juice with club soda, you've got yourself a big bucket of crap."

What the hell is going on?

2005-09-02T13:15:00.001-07:00

How can this be happening in the United States? Why is the federal government so slow to respond? Why are they blaming the local authorities? What is it about the Bush administration and all of their cronies who would rather pass the buck than actually accept responsibility? Where is the federal leadership? How can conservative right-wingers actually have the gall to blame the poor for not having enough money or resources to leave? Who are these lecherous fucks looting and raping? Where are the soldiers and police force to stop them? Who the fuck is sniping at the hospital? Where is Dick Cheney? Who the fuck cares about Trent Lott's house? Does FEMA chief Michael Brown have his head up his ass, or is he just stupid?

Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans: righteous anger.

Not to politicize a catastrophe, but heads better roll for this massive fuckup. Nobody is ever accountable with this administration. Seeing as how the federal government decreased hurricane spending in Louisiana for the last five years, how they wouldn't supply the Army Core of Engineers (who volunteered to strengthen the levees for no cost), and how they colossally failed in their disaster response in all phases (security, food and water, shelter, evacuation, manpower, medical aid), people need to be made examples of.

[ American Red Cross ]
[ America's Second Harvest ]

Other news.

2005-08-31T11:13:00.001-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/31/iraq.main/index.html

841 people, and counting. Not that it's any more or less important than the hurricane, but this is barely getting any coverage. 841 fucking people, trampled to death.

Also, Louisiana had to call up their bordering states for some National Guardsmen because theirs are all in Iraq. Maybe they could've curbed some of the looting?

Chocolate cigarettes.

2005-08-30T12:20:00.002-07:00

"A recent consumer poll shows that 'Hershey' is America's favorite company, while 'Phillip-Morris' is America's least favorite. In the middle -- the company that makes chocolate cigarettes --right in the middle."

(I just wanted to post a picture of Norm with a weird, Tom Sellecky mustache)

Disasters.

2005-08-30T11:33:00.002-07:00

I'll take our blizzards over hurricanes, tornadoes, mud slides, forest fires, floods, or earthquakes anyday. We get it pretty easy up here.

It's nice to see Bush take the time out of his vacation (Nevada) from his vacation (Crawford, Texas) to stumble through a dumb speech about the hurricane.

Only the good die young.

2005-08-25T13:10:00.001-07:00

Finally got my 'Undeclared' box set the other day. Thank God for small miracles. I only wish there was a Season 2 to look forward to.

'Closer'

2005-08-23T07:51:00.001-07:00

Larry: That's the spirit. Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. Now fuck off and die, you fucked up slag.

Don't forget.

2005-08-19T07:46:00.002-07:00

Bill Maher's back tonight. Sweet.

The Poker Dead Zone

2005-08-18T20:41:00.001-07:00

I consider myself a pretty decent poker player. I usually win more often than I lose (except at Foxwoods...). But this week has to be the one of the worst I've ever had. It all started when I decided to jump back on the Party Poker bandwagon. My usual m.o. is to deposit the requisite $50, try to double or triple that money in a day playing boring ass micro limits, withdraw the initial deposit, and use the remainder to play with. If I win, great. If I lose, it's house money at that point.

This week...no such luck. I stayed pretty even for a day or two, never going up or down more than $15. And then the shit hit the fan. Dominating hands on the flop were cracked by guys hitting runner-runner or spiking a set on the river because they stubbornly played their pocket 2's to the end. Then I had a period where I couldn't hit a damn thing. Nothing. I'm holding AK? Flop comes 2 5 9. I got 56 suited? Flop comes A K 10, all rainbow. If I had the good fortune of flopping the nuts, I'd get absolutely no action, no matter how slow I played my hand. So basically I was hemorrhaging money on losing hands and making a trifle on hands that should've paid me off.

Within a couple of more days I was down to around $5 and cursing the poker gods for forsaking me. See, ordinarily I'd be paranoid and petty and accuse Party Poker of trying to cheat me (there are theories out there...). But my spate of bad luck/bad play continued into our home poker game last night, where I busted out twice.

So with my shiny $5, I decided to start playing super tight-aggressive. It worked for a little while as I started to scrape together a few wins, and then...the hand that told me I should stop playing for a while.

I've got J 10 of spades in second position. The first guy folds, I limp in for .50 as do two more players. The small blinds limps and the big blind checks.

The flop comes 7s 8s Td.
I've got top pair with a decent kicker, a flush draw, an inside straight draw, and an inside straight-flush draw. I figure I'm in great position. SB checks, BB bets out .50, I decide to just call so as to build a pot behind me. Everybody calls except for the SB.

The turn brings the Tc. Now I've got trips. BB bets $1, this time I raise, one guy behind me folds and one calls, and BB re-raises me. Sweet, now we've got a pot. I re-raise, capping the action, and both call behind me.

The 5s comes on the river. I've made my flush. BB bets out again, I raise, guy behind calls, BB re-raises, I re-raise back, guy behind calls, BB calls. Give me my money! Um, nope. BB shows 10-5, giving him the full house and the $27.50 pot. The guy was unknowingly drawing to two outs (the only remaining 5's in the deck) and he hits one of the river. Unbelievable. Now I'm back to $5 and convinced that someone has it in for me. I tighten up AGAIN and make a mini-comeback for an hour, but the momentum petered out, leaving me here, lamenting my poker losses and wondering if it's me, bad luck, or a combination of both.

(Oh, and the Sox defense is atrocious in the 5th inning and Wakefield just got hit in the ankle with a line drive.)

This is ridiculous.

2005-08-17T10:18:00.002-07:00

'Best of You'

2005-08-16T22:12:00.001-07:00

So my brother bought the new double disc Foo Fighters album 'In Your Honor' a few weeks ago. Besides the novelty of one disc being all rock and the other being all acoustic, I wasn't that eager to give it a listen. The Foo Fighters, despite being a great band, had been in steady, boring decline ever since their amazing 'The Colour and the Shape'.

I finally listened to both discs a couple of times and haven't been blown away, but the first single, 'Best of You,' is a keeper. The drums are thunderous and the song has a bounce and energy that's been missing in their work recently. What really sets it apart though are Grohl's vocals: raw, angry, and desperate. Grohl's always been a great screamer, but here I think he really shines. There's so much emotion in each verse, and he just keeps coming and coming, finally winding down back into the opening verse. I wish I could better explain why I like the song so much, but frankly, I don't know what I'm talking about. But the damn song is stuck in my head (I've listened to it about 20 times today).

Semantics.

2005-08-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

I think it's funny that when I screw something up I'm 'wrong', yet when my father screws something up, it's 'miscommunication'. Also funny how 'miscommunication' usually means me having to do more work. I could be sleeping right now.

Bob Feller - Baseball's Andy Rooney

2005-08-12T10:57:00.002-07:00

Bob Feller, a Hall of Famer who pitched for the Indians in the 40's and 50's, has always been a crotchety old man, even when he was a young 'un. He has the distinction of being the first baseball player to charge for autographs, was a very vocal opponent of integration (in his opinion, Jackie Robinson was too 'muscle-bound' to play effectively), and publicly chastised Major League Baseball for honoring Muhammed Ali (because he was, according to Feller, a 'draft-dodger') at an All-Star Game.

And now he speaks again. During a radio interview to discuss comments by the recently fired San Francisco Giants announcer who stupidly decried 'brain-dead Caribbean players' that don't know the rules, Feller once again showed his xenophobic nature by firmly agreeing. When pressed by the host of the show, who is black, to cite specific examples of Latin ballplayers 'not understanding the rules', Feller became combative. He threatened to end the interview if he wasn't shown proper respect, to which the host basically told him fuck off.

Feller is interesting because he also has the distinction of the being the first ballplayer to enlist in the military following Pearl Harbor. He rejected a cushy, stateside posting to become a gun chief on a warship, and served for four years. What's problematic is that I think many people dismiss Feller's less polite comments because he sacrificed four prime years of his career. He's a 'Real' American, an Iowa farmboy who made good with his 100 mile an hour heater and served his country at a dire time. For that, he should be commended. But a racist is a racist, and he should get no free passes.

Norm MacDonald

2005-08-10T08:46:00.002-07:00

I really, really wish they had a 'Best of Norm MacDonald' SNL DVD. Even if it was just a compilation of Weekend Update, a couple Bob Dole and Burt Reynolds skits, and the one about 'Real Men'.

Roberto Petagine

2005-08-09T14:20:00.001-07:00

Three bad plays last night:

1. Miller's laboring, and he finally gets the batter to hit a slow grounder to first. Petagine starts to break the wrong way, tries to correct himself, and ends up letting the ball go through his legs and under his glove. Another run scores, and the game is tied.

2. Kevin Mench hits a single to right field but stumbles out of the box. Millar, who is fielding the ball, sees an opportunity and fires the ball to first. Petagine isn't even paying attention, turns around at the last minute and awkwardly fields the ball. I know it's not exactly a routine play, but he was clearly not paying attention to where the ball was.

3. Foul pop up to the first base side, and Petagine goes after it and then...completely loses sight of it. Thankfully Graffanino comes swooping in to save poor Roberto's ass.

Throw in an inning ending, rally killing double play early on in the game, when it was still competitive, and Petagine's not exactly lighting the world on fire. Somehow I think Ortiz would embarass himself less out there, but maybe they don't want to take him out of his comfort zone. I say, send Roberto back to AAA and find a way to make a trade for Daubach. Dauber, I miss you.

What's up with Republicans and swearing in public?

2005-08-05T09:00:00.001-07:00

For such a moralistic party, they sure do have potty mouths.

The Associated Press

Updated: 11:24 a.m. ET Aug. 5, 2005

NEW YORK - Robert Novak, whose revelation of a CIA officer’s name in a 2003 column has sparked a federal probe, was suspended by CNN after he swore and walked off the set during a live telecast of “Inside Politics.”

The incident occurred Thursday as Novak and Democratic operative James Carville were handicapping the Senate candidacy of former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Novak said the opposition of the Republican establishment in Florida might not be fatal for her.

“Let me just finish, James, please,” Novak continued. “I know you hate to hear me, but you have to.”

Carville, addressing the camera, said: “He’s got to show these right wingers that he’s got a backbone, you know. It’s why The Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show ’em that you’re tough.”

“Well, I think that’s bullshit and I hate that,” Novak replied. “Just let it go.”

As moderator Henry stepped in to ask Carville a question, Novak walked off the set.

A CNN spokeswoman, Edie Emery, called Novak’s behavior “inexcusable and unacceptable.” Novak apologized to CNN, and CNN was apologizing to viewers, she said.

“We’ve asked Mr. Novak to take some time off,” she said.

Telephone messages left at Novak’s office Thursday and Friday were not immediately returned.

Jesus H. Fucking Christ

2005-07-30T01:48:00.001-07:00

Enough with the 93 Detours in downtown Boston. ENOUGH. It's bad enough that they've gone on for weeks now (as far as I know), but tonight was the absolute worst. I had to go through fucking downtown Boston and drive all the way into Southie before I could hook back onto 93 South. Of course I got lost three hundred fucking times trying to figure which detour sign was for what and somehow ended up at Logan (the $3 toll to get out of the airport was pretty sweet). And of course on the way back up north we got detoured again. Thank God I know my way around the South End/Back Bay, thus giving me the ability to circumvent the rest of the traffic and safely hit Sturrow. What should have been a 15-20 minute ride to Quincy ended up being an hour and a half/two hours. ENOUGH.

'Mezmerize'

2005-05-23T10:04:00.001-07:00

Buy this album now. A lean, mean 36 minute album with pulverizing riffs and Serj Tankian's amazing vocals/lyrics. If you buy this album tomorrow or later, and you have money left over, then you might want to pick up Audioslave's 'Out of Exile'. Might. If you have leftover cash. A C+ offering from our favorite superband.

Post.

2005-04-01T16:55:00.001-08:00

Yup.