The Blog with No Name

Comments are back. . .knock yourself out. I’m not sure if anything is actually fixed yet.

I was down in California last weekend. I was hoping to get a post up about it tonight, but blog upgrading issues got in my way as did a dumb movie.

I’m upgrading Wordpress to a cute little point release in the hopes that some “security fixes” will plug the holes the comment spammers are sneaking through. Meanwhile. . .lots of things are broken . . .

You know, the only reason that cop shot the bear was because it was black. Had that been a polar bear, nobody would have been hurt.

Comment spammers are back and in full force. I thought I had this problem pretty much under control, but I guess I don’t. I’m going to break comments for the time being. I’m sick of seeing 350+ comment spams a day. I’m also going to seriously look into allowing only registered users to post a comment. I don’t want to do this, but every method of spam prevention I’ve tried has failed miserably.

So, I lied. I said on the first really nice day I’d go down to the waterfront, get a martini, and watch the sunset. Today was that day, but instead I elected to go up to the top of Queen Anne hill and get a iced slushee coffee thingee. I did have a pleasant sit there outside of Tully’s at the intersection of Queen Anne Ave. N and Boston Ave. My goal is to become a fixture there by the end of the summer. I want to be like that homeless guy who’s always up there with the afro, hairpick, fanny pack, and busted headphones who shuffles around talking to his imaginary friend. People will drive or walk by and think, “There’s that skinny dude who sits, watching people for hours on end. Creepy.” I’m starting to recognize some regulars. There’s an older gentleman who frequents the same intersection. He usually sits drinking his coffee, listening to his iPod. He smoked before the smoking ban. I also saw that dope who drives the convertible Porsche and bumps Yanni. Today it wasn’t Yanni, but it wasn’t that much better. I laughed when I saw him.

Today, besides people, car, and dog watching, I got some reading done, which I hadn’t done in a while. I’m getting close to finishing the ethics book I started at the beginning of the year. I’d like to have it done by the end of the month. I was frustrated that it became somewhat of a struggle to finish the chapter. I grew impatient and distracted for the last few pages, forcing me to re-read several paragraphs. When I was in school, something like that wouldn’t have been a problem. The material was relatively simple and short. I guess I’m just losing my edge. I’m becoming weak of mind and body these days.

Walking back to my car, I passed several restaurants with outdoor seating. All of these were full of couples and groups of couples chatting amiably and enjoying the weather. I was quite envious. I’ll admit one of the few times I wish I had a significant other are evenings like today when I could be having dinner outside and in the company of an attractive woman. Instead, I only had reheated teriyaki to eat in a lonely apartment while I played video games. I could have had reheated teriyaki that is. I accidently left it in my truck, and I was too lazy to get it again. My truck will smell like teriyaki in the morning. Yum.

Lost: One 4gig white iPod Nano in a green case. Full of crappy music. If found, please don’t laugh at my music.

A quick follow up to my longish post on gas prices the other week. My buddy Chris forwarded me an article from The Motley Fool, which makes a few good points. First, gas prices are a market “problem” caused mainly by demand far outstripping supply. Second, political solutions are idiotic. I think this graph makes a good point:

Instead of recognizing this basic economic reality, our elected representatives are doing what they tend to do — pander to voters by misrepresenting their importance to the national economy through saying they’re going to “do something” about oil prices … or conversely, blaming the other side for not doing something. And let me be clear about this: The outcome would be nearly the same no matter who were in office. Democrat, Republican, Whig — it wouldn’t matter. Politicians say these things because no one has ever gotten elected by making certain that his or her comments hewed to economic reality. Taking credit for success you had no hand in causing is a tried and true staple in legislatures worldwide. Sadly, people believe it.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of public support for the government to “do something,” and, unfortunately, our politicians are motivated more by getting votes than doing the smart economic thing.

Finally, high gas prices cause pain, but this pain is actually a good thing. As the article puts it, “Yes, high gas prices are horribly painful. But what that pain causes is the greatest outcome of the free market — incentive. Incentive to conserve, incentive to develop, and incentive to come up with (and switch to) alternatives like fuel cells and nuclear power.” Low gas prices are not going to encourage the development of new energy technology, lower fuel consumption, and smarter economic decisions. High gas prices are a stepping stone to a better, cleaner, more efficient future.

Cool pics of earth from NASA. Behold:

Here’s some pictorial evidence why my job is a good job. First, we get animal crackers:

Second, yesterday we had a big company party of sorts with free food and a 3-on-3 basketball tourney. Real TMO employees had the day off so they could be there. Pathetic contractors like me were able to enjoy the festivities only if their bosses allowed it. Squatch, the Sonics mascot, came out for some fun too:

At first I was reticent about writing a post on games. However, I see my friend Dan has a good post about some E3 announcements, so I thought, “What the heck. Dan’s cool, and he did it. I can do it too.” Because this is going to be a very nerdy post, I’ll keep it off the main page. Click to follow through, and you can thank me later.

(more…)

Some days I find so much stuff to write about I get overwhelmed and end up writing nothing. These days are usually marked by myriad fragmented thoughts I think are important but in retrospect I’m often glad I didn’t blog about them because they are decidedly unimportant. You may have noticed the lack of political posts these days. Well, now you know one of the reasons why I don’t write about it. The vast majority of it is pretty pointless. I am so very thankful for tabbed browsing on these days. Actually, I’m thankful for tabbed browsing everyday.

As you can see, this post is nearly pointless itself. To publish or not to publish? . . .

Mission: Impossible 3 is pretty much what I expected it to be: Tom Cruise does action, Tom Cruise does romance, Tom Cruise does serious, Tom Cruise does tough guy, Tom Cruise does masks, and Tom Cruise does looking-good-in-black. M:I 3 is better than M:I 2, but M:I 1 is still the best of the lot. I guess that’s all you need to know, but I can ramble on for a bit about it.

As Jeremiah mentions, the plot is thin. Indeed, it’s a mere skeleton on which a capable cast hangs fascinating action ornaments. I’m a sucker for action sequences, so of course I found these ornaments fun to watch. The harebrained schemes remind me a lot of the plots in Knight Rider: no matter how crazy it sounds, the good guys can always pull it off (but if it does fail, the good guys will come up with an equally crazy plot that will succeed). Clearly, Team Impossible has a lot of luck and/or God is most definitely in their corner. Many times I was thinking, “Oh Tom is going to be seen for sure lying right there in the open” or “Well, Tom’s definitely doing to snap his neck now” or “There’s no way Tom will get there on time.” I was always wrong, but that’s good otherwise the movie would have been awfully short and Ethan Hunt wouldn’t be the legendary super-agent that he is. I’m all for suspending copius amounts of reality for the sake of a good action plot.

Turning to the acting, I wished they had used Laurence Fishburne more than they did. I think he’s a superb actor, and I enjoy seeing him on the screen. Unfortunately, for this role he only had a few lines, and half the time I didn’t like him as the pushy boss. Ving Rhames does a good job as the technical catalyst for Tom’s brilliant schemes, but he’s given some lame, predictable lines. Simon Pegg (the dude from Shaun of the Dead) delivers a fun performance that adds the bit of comedy relief, allowing the audience a chance to catch it’s breath. According to the IMDB trivia page, Ricky Gervais was supposed to play Pegg’s character. That would have been hilarious. Tom himself gets his job done quite well, in my opinion. It’s a typical Cruise performance, and I hope he counts his lucky stars that his only schtick looks good on the big screen. Personally, his real world antics are easily forgotten when I see him on screen, so I think I’m less Tommed-out than most others. The real star of the show is Philip Seymour Hoffman, but this was to be expected. Hoffman is a fantastic actor and pulls off the vicious, cunning, coldly calculating villian fantastically. His final scene is great. It hits the audience like a speeding truck, leaving them stunned, looking around in disbelief, and muttering, “Did I just see that?!”

Final recommendation: It’s worth a matinee for sure, and it’s a winner for the action flick crowd.

Pros: fun movie, crrraaaazzy schemes, Tom Cruise, really sweet bullet noises,
Cons: Tom Cruise, good actors used little, not enough explosions, really thin plot, destruction of killer cars

Double augh. Now I have to plunk down an “attractive” amount of money to get the original version of Star Wars, the true Star Wars that takes place in the universe in which Han does indeed shoot first. Mr. Lucas is lucky I’m not the violent type. Very lucky.

Godzilla: Final Wars is winging its way towards me courtesy of Netflix. All is well. I think I will enjoy the final chapter in the Godzilla saga. I’ll report back if I shed a goodbye tear for the King of the Monsters.