November 14, 2005
After an unusally balmy autumn, the Twin Cities are bracing for the first significant snowfall since March with up to 5 inches of snow scheduled to pile up by midday Tuesday.The entire state of Minnesota and much of western Wisconsin is currently under a winter storm watch.
For the Twin Cities, rain is expected tonight, turning to snow after 9 p.m. Tuesday's rush hours are likely to be tortured, with 3 to 5 inches possible by late evening Tuesday, compounded by strong winds gusting toward 30 miles per hour.
Winds are expected to continue to roar into Wednesday, with falling temperatures producing subzero windchills. The predicted low temperature for Tuesday is 24 degrees, but for Wednesday it's predicted to fall to 12 degrees. {...}
Oh, yay. Can't hardly wait!
/sarcasm
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If you are interested, read on after the jump.
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November 11, 2005
Two words describe it quite well: deliciously bitchy.
{...}What would Mr. Bennet make of the film? He would be left wondering, I suspect, why God gave him only two eyebrows to raise. Let us not even ponder the likely reactions of Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Judi Dench), Darcy’s glacier of an aunt, or those of Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander), the reverend munchkin who resides on Lady Catherine’s estate and slithers beneath her gaze. What they would find incomprehensible in the movie is not the storytelling, which charts with commendable briskness the motions of various hearts, but the prevailing mood. Who is this figure, complete with steed and flying cape, who canters through the dusky woods as if eager to get home before the moon turns him into a wolf? Why, it is our friend Mr. Darcy, who has just popped round to deliver a letter. What is the purpose of this tangerine glow that fills the screen? Has the movie taken an unheralded commercial break, in which tanning lotion is being hawked to the audience? No, this is the view from inside Lizzie’s closed eyelids on a sunny day. And whence this knocking at the door after dark, which brings the nightshirted Bennets downstairs with quivering candles? It is Lady Catherine, come to bawl and bark at Lizzie in a surprising reënactment of the drill-sergeant routine from “Full Metal Jacket.”What has happened is perfectly clear: Jane Austen has been Brontëfied. In the book, Lady Catherine appears in daylight, “too early in the morning for visitors.” The film has rightly kept the hint of social insolence but switched the hour, so that the dramatic may be shaded and inked into melodrama. The question is not whether the director was justified in that transmutation but whether he had the choice; whether any of us, as moviemakers, viewers, or readers, retain the ability—not so much the scholarly equipment as the imaginative clairvoyance—to see Austen clearly. Maybe we are doomed to view her through the smoked glass of the intervening centuries, during which the spirit of romance, and the role of the body within it, have evolved out of all recognition. Why, when Lizzie accompanies her aunt and uncle to the Peak District of England, should the film take care to set her silent upon a peak, her dress and tresses stirring in the wind, if not to drop the clanging hint that Mr. Darcy is less an icy gentleman of means than a britches-busting Heathcliff in the making?{...}
Make sure you read the whole thing.
I have said it before, I will say it again: if you are watching any version of Pride and Prejudice other than this one, you are missing out. This is easily one of the best---if not the best---projects that television, let alone the Beeb, has ever produced. If you are one of those people who moans and groans about the liberties taken with books that are adapted for either the small or large screen, know that for once (!!!!) they finally stayed true to a book and did it up right. It's an adaptation truly worthy of the novel. The novel is, in my humble opinion, Austen's best, so it is quite perfect, in the scheme of that thing called universal justice, that such a great novel would have a worthy adaptation. This miniseries hit every note perfectly.
And besides, why would you want to see this stupid new version when it's pretty darn obvious that Matthew MacFayden can't carry the ruffles off like this guy can?
QED
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Heh. As for the BBC miniseries, it's wonderful! I'd seen it on TV a few times, then two years back, one of my readers sent me the DVDs. I watch them all the time.by Father Edward O'Brien
USMC
It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the solider who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag
Who allows the protesters to burn the flag.
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LONDON - A Boeing Co. jet arrived in London from Hong Kong on Thursday, breaking the record for the longest nonstop flight by a commercial jet. The 777-200LR Worldliner — one of Boeing's newest planes — touched down shortly after 1 p.m. (8 a.m. EST) at London's Heathrow Airport after a journey of more than 13,422 miles. The previous record was set when a Boeing 747-400 flew 10,500 miles from London to Sydney in 1989.A representative of Guinness World Records, which monitored the flight, presented Boeing's Lars Andersen with a certificate confirming it was for the longest nonstop commercial flight.
{...}The jet spent 22 hours and 43 minutes in the air.{...}
I find I must second the thoughts of my Maximum Leader on this topic: "Hey Airbus Industries! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!"
Although, my God in heaven, that would be a really long time to spend on a plane. I sincerely hope they have a really good movie selection. It would probably help if they dedicated a few planes for smoking flights only. I can see where a smoker would get violent at twenty-two hours without nicotine.
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November 10, 2005
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" — the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power — as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."{...}
Yeah, I know. It's Pat Robertson. But still...
On a somewhat related aside: is this Robertson's fourth smiting this year? Or is it his fifth? I've lost track.
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11:22 PM
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The Strib has a pretty cool section on said unnamed boat today, too.
I'm sure you're asking why I don't want to name the boat. Well, see, here's the thing: I'm a firm believer that Gordon Lightfoot is eviiiiilllll (as in "the d-evil made me do it") and if I name the damn boat, well, the song that details the tale of said big boat will start playing in my head and no one really needs that, right? Because I will start to go insane. I'll start sticking stuff in my ears to try and get the damn thing to get out. When that doesn't work, I will start playing Anthrax's and Public Enemy's version of "Bring the Noise" from Attack of the Killer B's at high volume to try and rid myself of Mr. Lightfoot. This will bring my very cool landlord upstairs to complain about the noise. I will start screaming at him that, no, I can't turn down the Anthrax because I need to either play this or slit my wrists because Gordon Lightfoot is possessing my ears. Given the fact that the landlord is just that much younger than I am and will probably have no idea who the hell Gordon Lightfoot is, he will call the Cake Eater police and will try to have me committed because he fears I'm a danger to myself and others.
So, I'm not naming that tune/boat, ya dig? Really. I'm sparing everyone the trouble.
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November 08, 2005
- It's Cotillion Tuesday, so shuffle on over to Not A Desperate Houswife's place and read.
- Phin's perversion is on the same wavelength as mine. I've been waiting for someone to point this out. Thank God Phin saved us all by bothering to post that observation.
And while you're over at Phin's, make sure you read this post regarding Operation Enduring Service, which is a plan to save a few Fulton Class ships from obsolesence for use in hurricane relief efforts. Calls and emails to senators and congresspeople are required. Shuffle along and do some good. You owe it to Phin as he made the Paris Hilton observation.
- And while we're talking about doing good, because you know you were bad last weekend and are feeling the need to atone, Soldiers Angels is participating in a fundraising drive for Project Valour-IT, which is, according to the email I received last week (my bad) :
Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, provides voice-controlled software and laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand and arm injuries or amputations at major military medical centers. Operating laptops by speaking into a microphone, our wounded heroes are able to send and receive messages from friends and loved ones, surf the 'Net, and communicate with buddies still in the field without having to press a key or move a mouse. The experience of CPT Charles "Chuck" Ziegenfuss, a partner in the project who suffered hand wounds while serving in Iraq, illustrates how important this voice-controlled software can be to a wounded servicemember's recovery.
A worthy cause, no?
- Everyone's favorite commie pinko will be giving away prizes to the millionth visitor to his blog. Perhaps you could win something. I hear they're good, too. No free cars, but free stuff is free stuff, right? A can of silly string is just as good as a Mercedes covertible. RUSH RIGHT OVER, YA HEAR AND WISH HIM WELL. and no he's not really handing out prizes. I just felt the need to make his life difficult.
That should do it for me. If you have something you'd like to promote (other than dissertations on penis/breast enhancement and the like) throw it into the comments.
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11:29 PM
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Doing election analysis.
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
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04:24 PM
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November 07, 2005
That's all. Move along. Nothing more to see here.
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09:59 PM
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Don't ask. Just go and read.
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09:33 PM
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Ahem
I have a United States flag that needs to be dispatched to the Great Beyond. I know the proper way to dispose of an American flag is to burn it. But...
Would it be really disrespectful of me to use lighter fluid to get said flag to burn?
I am completely serious. Help me out here, kids. We never covered this stuff in Girl Scouts.
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01:42 PM
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{...}There are those of us in America who like films about GROWN UPS, mkay? Who, yes, LOVE films like Blue Crush (heh heh). But who also want films that are a bit more unforgiving. A bit more brutal. Not feel-good romantic comedies. But movies about LIFE, and life's STRUGGLES. In the 70s, studios did not feel the need to APOLOGIZE for such movies - the way Paramount is pretty much apologizing for The Weather Man right now.Less and less in our culture, is there a space for GROWN-UPS. I'm fucking sick of it, frankly. I don't have kids. I resent having the public sphere geared more and more towards the rated G crowd. I resent having movies be dummed down so a certain demographic will go see it. I'm an ADULT and my money is ALSO worth something in this country, mkay? And there are those out there (I know many of them) who have kids but who don't expect the entire fucking world to be G-rated just because they have children.
That's why when films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind do well ... especially in the midst of a year where pretty much every big "blockbuster" TANKED ... I just feel so happy about it. So gleeful. The fact that Napoleon Dynamite and March of the fucking Penguins made ENORMOUS profits (compared to the cost of making the films) - while the big blockbusters hemorrhaged money and didn't make it back ... just make me want to clap my hands in vengeful glee.
The Weather Man is depressing. But I actually don't find that to be a strike against it. There are many audience members out there like me ... who do not say "it's depressing" as a warning. It's just a fact.
He is having a midlife crisis. He wants his father's approval. He feels like he has lost touch with his kids. Things are BAD, man.
What - such movies shouldn't be made? Or if we are, we should apologize for them? Or try to trick people into thinking it's a comedy through advertising?{...}
Yes, yes, yes, shrieks Kathy, loudly.
It's been quite disconcerting to become a grown-up. As a kid, whenever I was disappointed that I'd been overruled, which happened often, I would express the wish that I wanted to grow-up, so I could make my own decisions. Here's a question for the children of today: do they even want to grow-up? Because, the way I see it, they've got the world on a string already; becoming an adult would end their world domination. I looked forward to becoming a grownup because grownups got to have all the fun; they called the shots; everything was made for grownups. We children were seen, but not heard. Nowadays everything is made for children because---and haven't we all heard this one before?---the world tilted on its axis the day my child was born. I've never loved anyone so much as I love my child. I don't know how I ever lived before they came along. My life has completely changed for the better!
There's a reason why I bolded all of those pronouns. It's to highlight the parental vanity that is so annoyingly common these days. And that's what this focus on children is a result of: parental vanity. Because as much as I'd like to lay it off on the wee brats, they're not the ones at fault. It's the parents who are to blame for the idea that the world should be one big G-Rated ride on Magic Mountain. How many times have you heard one of those phrases come from an adult's mouth? Did said parent say it with a breathless certainty that they, indeed, were the first people to ever give birth in this world? That they were, indeed, the first people, out of billions, to ever truly get the feeling of love of their child down right? I don't know what the deal is, but there are so many people nowadays who are certain that the most important thing they will ever do is have and raise children. This may be indeed be true. But this doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees with the idea that the world should revolve around their children.
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November 02, 2005
{...}The issue erupted into the public consciousness late on Monday, when computer developer and author Mark Russinovich published a blog detailing how he had found the First 4 Internet software hiding deep in his computer, after he had listened to a copy-protected CD distributed by Sony BMG.The anticopying technology included a tool called a "rootkit," often used by virus writers. A rootkit takes partial control of a computer's operating system at a very deep level in order to hide the presence of files or ongoing processes.
Rootkits, while not intrinsically malicious, are viewed with deep suspicion by many in the software development community. They are extraordinarily difficult to find and remove without specific instructions, and attempts to modify the way they act can even damage the normal functioning of a computer.
In the case of the First 4 Internet software, attempts to remove it manually rendered the CD drive of the computer inoperable, Russinovich found.
Several antivirus companies followed Russinovich's news with warnings that the First 4 Internet tools could let virus writers hide malicious software on computers, if the coders piggybacked on the file-cloaking functions. {...}
To sum up: Sony BMG put this rootkit software on their music CD's as a part of their "digital rights management" program. The upshot of this is that if you play a Sony CD on your computer, it will install this software on your computer. As the husband says, "Hackers install rootkits because they can hide them from the Windows API, meaning that any anti-virus or any anti-spyware program that is running within Windows won't be able to see it." So, this is sneaky software that is designed to do sneaky things. According to the article, if you tried to remove the rootkit software, it rendered your CD drive inoperable.
Keep in mind that this is your computer system Sony thinks it has a right to install this sneaky software onto. It doesn't matter to them if you're trying to copy their CD's or not. You could, conceivably, just be listening to a CD on your computer, and if you have some knowledge of how these things work and you found the rootkit, if you tried to remove it, said rootkit will instruct your CD drive not to run.
And this all because you listened to a Sony BMG music CD on your computer.
Now, some bright soul pointed out to Sony that this rootkit debacle opens up people's computers to black hat hackers---people who would do damage to you and your system. What's even worse about this situation is that if, per chance, you were infected with a virus via this rootkit hole on your machine, your anti-virus software wouldn't recognize the fact you have a virus. It would be flying under the radar because it came in through a hole that's under the radar. Sony's bright idea to solve this problem is to release a patch. They think the software should remain on people's machines; that they have a right to install software on your machine without your knowledge to damage your equipment if you do something they don't like---like try to remove software they installed.
This is just astonishing that Sony thinks they can get away with this sort of thing. This is the equivalent of a contractor smashing a hole in the wall of your house and then handing you a piece of plastic and some duct tape to fix it, and then claiming that this should do the trick and you should be warm and dry in the middle of January.
Which, I think we can all agree, is bullshit.
Now here's the question for the lawyers in the house: one would think that Sony would be in big trouble legally for this stunt. Are they? This just reeks of a Class Action suit to me...but I'm no lawyer. Universal Music has subscribed to rootkits, too.
{Hat Tip: Tech Dirt}
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- Leftover Halloween candy. Yes, I know, how could I possibly be peeved by leftover Halloween candy? That's just wrong. Well, believe you me, I can be peeved by it because there are no tootsie pops in the bowl. There's a lot of chocolate, provided by Hersheys and Reese's. There's also Sweettarts. But there's no tootsie pops.
Did I mention that we only had two trick-or-treaters? So we have shedloads of candy left?
This is what happens when you send the husband out to buy candy. He forgets the tootsie pops and he buys too much of everything else.
Sheesh.
- The obnoxious Cake Eater neighbor bought his sixteen-year-old kid a Beetle. It's used, but it's only two years old, so it ain't that used.
Whatever happened to sixteen-year-olds being forced to drive 1973 Monte Carlos? Does that happen anywhere anymore? Why on earth should a sixteen-year-old get a nice car, eh? Explain that one to me, would you? And don't give me that excuse about newer cars being safer and these parents are just protecting their precious little brats. Bullshit. Kids are awful drivers, hence they deserve a car that is built out of steel and will survive a wreck---unlike a Beetle, which is made out of plastic and will, I have a feeling, disintegrate at the first tap of an opposing fender. So what if the old Monte Carlo doesn't have airbags? A whopping case of whiplash is just what a kid needs to learn to slow the fuck down.
None of which, of course, covers the long forgotten Presidential directive laid out in the second Nixon Administration that decrees sixteen-year-olds should not be driving cars that are nicer than those their elders drive.
- My 35th birthday is sometime this week. And, yes, really that's peeving me.
- I sprained my ankle last week and while it's turning a spectacular shade of blue, it's still swollen to fuck-all levels. HEAL, motherfucker!
- I was supposed to earn some spare Christmas money next week and that opportunity just got shot out of the water.
- I have to go clean out the pantry. This is one of my least favorite things to do, but it must be done because, well, there's just no frickin' space to move around in there right now.
- I've been savoring this novel for the past week. And while it's so much better than the one that came before, I have to ask: does Diana Gabaldon have a freakin' copy editor? The reason I ask is...
BECAUSE THE CONTINUITY ERRORS ARE DRIVING ME UP THE GODDAMN WALL!
I'm not going to list all the errors I've found here, because I'm not done with the book yet and I will undoubtedly have more to say about it later on. But there are some pretty goddamn basic errors in this book that should have had alarm bells ringing at the publishing company. That they didn't ring bells---and actually made it into print, for Godsakes, well, this tells me that something is not quite right.
And there you have it, kids. Now I'm off to clean out the pantry.
UPDATE 11-03-05 One more to add to the list. Ahem. I am irritated that Steve-o spelled my name with a 'C'.
Waaaaaaaaaaah.
It's like he never knew me at all.
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November 01, 2005
I used to think that if all else failed, I could hire myself out as a guide to people from Wayzata and Edina who were trying to get to a show at the Orway or Rivercenter or the Civic, in downtown Saint Paul.For those of you from outside the Twin Cities, Saint Paul is traditionally a mystery to people from Minneapolis. Mark Twain once said "Saint Paul is the last city of the east, and Minneapolis is the first city of the west", and it certainly shows in their street grids;{...}
I would have hired you, Mitch.
I hate driving in St. Paul. It's screwed up. I always used to chalk it up it up to it being a river town, but I realized a few years ago, no, that's not it. You can have a river town that's logically organized. I should know; I grew up in one. St. Paul defies normal city planning convention and it leads to sweaty palms and many shouted "Where the hell am I going?"'s whenever I get behind the wheel of an automobile to venture over to the capitol city. Which isn't very often because the whole experience can be quite offputting. But hockey is over there, so if I had more hockey tickets, I suppose I could be bribed into getting used to it. (Hint, hint)
*Note to the Cake Eater Sister: See? I'm not the only one!
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{...}"It's got a more paternal feeling to it," the reclusive director tells Vanity Fair of his once-scandalous romance.{...}
Summed up in one word: eeeeeeeeeeew
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October 31, 2005
{...}How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google, MSN, Vonage, and others?How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts! {...}
Mike at Tech Dirt correctly lays the blame for this odious suggestion on the FCC's inhibitions about allowing for market competition:
{...}Notice that the only reason this is possible now is because there's less competition in the broadband space, not more. If there were real competition, SBC would never even dare to suggest that they might cut off a Google, Yahoo or Vonage.
Michael Powell had a huge opportunity to get something done about how the FCC regulated the telecom industry; he had the opportunity to create competition and he didn't do it.
Chickenshit.
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12:08 PM
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October 29, 2005
A. Live in the Twin Cities
B. Have been looking for a place to wear that Catwoman/Batman/Random Superhero costume you just happen to have hanging in your closet
C. Have a spare $40 to blow
D. Want to boogie until the wee hours
E. Enjoy the comedic stylings of Miss Richfield 1981
F. Want to meet with and buy your friendly Cake Eater a drink...
You should go here this evening.
Seriously. You should come on down. Mr. H., who's on the board of this here ball, would really appreciate your support.
And, yes, Steed and Peel won out.
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11:35 AM
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