The reality of Surrealism

I recall seeing a picture of this painting in highschool. I enjoy looking at a well done piece of art as much as anyone I guess, but I'm not sure I understand this one. Whether it's the duck-horse thing sleeping on the ground, or the UFO landing pad in the background, I"m not sure. In any case every time I see this painting, I wind up asking myself two questions:

What was going through his mind? And...

What was he on?

Well, I think I have a pretty good idea.

Wednesday night, I had just drifted off to sleep when my wife wakes me asking "what was that sound?" I don't know, I had been asleep.

I didn't think much about it because we have neighbors. Now, our neighbors aren't loud or disruptive by any means. To our left we have a couple younger guys that have a welding business, and on occasion they have what I would guess is a pretty typical Mexican style party. Granted, having never been to a party in Mexico, I really have no frame of reference, but before you brand me a racist understand that the party format pretty much fits the "Mexican" stereotype as seen on TV. Bunch of people sitting in lawn chairs or wandering about in the back yard, drinking beer, yelling in Spanish, and listening to Mariachi music. I'm not a cross cultural party expert by any means, but in my brain, that gets filed under "Mexican style party."

Across the street we have a couple houses with kids, and behind us around the corner there is a garage band of indeterminate ability. Noise is not uncommon in our neighborhood.

Well, my wife had ventured into the living room, to check out whatever she had heard and I settled in to go back to sleep when she yells "Come here!"

Well, I'm awake now. Should I grab the pistol first? I didn't. My flashlight isn't where it's supposed to be next to the bed. I'll have to go look for it.

I wander into the living room and look out the blinds where my wife is also looking, and it takes a couple seconds to register. There is a car in my front yard, with a guy trying to push it backwards over the berm, yelling something at the driver. I don't know if it's because I just woke up, or what, but I just didn't get it on first glance.

I went to the bedroom, put on pants, looked at the gun case again... no, I don't think they're here to hurt anyone, and walked to the front door. I opened the front door, and was told: "Dude, help us."

This guy just put his car in my yard not 8 feet from where my 3 year old daughter is still sleeping, and he wants me to help him get unstuck? Whatever Dali had been taking, this guy had consumed plenty of. I couldn't say anything. What do you say to that?

Well, amidst pleas for help, the driver seemed to have started the car, though it didn't sound like it would run for long. He got it in gear, stepped on the gas, and got about 3 feet closer to the wall where my little girl lives. Well, that was enough for me. I went into her room and picked her up out of her bed to keep anything from happening to her, and took her out to the living room. By the time I got back they had got the car moving in the right direction, and were working it up and over my landscaping. The glare of the headlights prevented me from getting more from the license plate than 1A, and my wife had finally located the phone to call 911.

I turned to take the phone from her, and they made it out into the road, and sped off down the street. The lights on the rear plate were completely out, so I couldn't get the tag number there either.

As a witness I was pretty worthless.

Well, we called 911, gave them the best description we had, and during that conversation, a neighbor across the street had heard the commotion, come out to see what was going on, and jumped in his truck to follow them.

They didn't make it far, the car broke down (or they abandoned it) a block or so away, and they tried to hide. My neighbor led the Police right to them. They were taken into custody, and an officer came down to get statements and took my wife over to identify them if she could. I don't' know if she made a good ID or not, but they had enough of my yard on the underside of their car that it's pretty obvious that they weren't sticking to city streets.

Needless to say, it was a couple more hours before we were able to get to sleep. None of the children woke up, and we're recovering from our short bout of adrenaline caused sleep deprivation.

Of course, now I need to figure out what kind of bushes I want to put in my yard.

So I'm unreliable...

...So what. I have my key to Karazan.

Ok, there are many of you that don't know what that means... Wait. what am I saying. I have 2 readers and they both know where Kara is.

I guess I better figure out how to make this blog more compelling. Now if only I could find a good tech news story to blog about and submit it to slashdot. Then I'd hit the big time.

But, until i find that great article, I'm going to have to go with what I know.

That's video games, music, and my awesome family.

Yeah, these guys suck at guitar hero. I'm not worried about it though, one's 4 and the other is 6 (the 4 year old isn't mine). They have plenty of time to figure out how to play and get better than me. I'm old, I'm slowing down, and I have that oh, so inconvenient responsibility called a job. Oh, did I mention I suck too. Yeah, actually playing guitar has almost nothing to do with this game. Maybe for the intense rhythm sections, but that's about it. It's an absolute blast!

I don't suppose it allows me to say I've played with the Stones or the Police though... We'll have to see how that one turns out.

Death is heavier than a mountain...

Slashdot sucks rocks. Well, I should say the people on Slashdot suck rocks...

First thing this morning I startup Firefox and open a tab for Slashdot. I'm checking the status on a handful of backups that continue failing, so I scan the headlines while servers are loading/logging-in. The first one that grabs my attention is Fantasy Author Robert Jordan Dies. What the crap! Talk about a way to make a Monday more Monday.

For those that know me, RJ is in the top 3 of my favorite authors list, so this is difficult news. (well, I put him at number 3, but based on how many times I've re-read his work, compared to the work of authors 1 (Stephen Lawhead) and 2 (J.R.R. Tolkien), he is most likely 1 in reality.)

In any event, I suppose the comments were just about what one should expect from Slashdot posers. It amazes me that people will make comments about happiness of the passing of an author because they think his work sucked. Some people never grow up.

He finally lost his fight to cardiac amyloidosis at 2:45 on Sunday. And I know that he had been scrambling in these last few months of his life to finish his epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time. The sadness is not the result of leaving this world without finishing his series, for as we know, Tolkien was unable to finish, (and we're all aware of what kind of influence he failed to have on the world as we know it) but on the loss of a great man and author. I adore the world he created, and will miss looking forward to the next installment.

My condolences and prayers go out to his family. He was dear to many of us and will be missed. You have every right to be proud of his work and accomplishments.

May you shelter in the palm of the Creator’s hand, and may the Mother’s last embrace welcome you home.

Free College Degree in Crackerjacks!

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/08/20/news/state/24-tuition.txt

Ok, so the link is out of the way. Go read the article. I'll wait.


All done? So here goes.

I'm outraged 7 ways from Sunday. Talk about political posturing and campaigning.

Max, here's the problem.

First, I don't want to pay for the education of someone that will be competing with me for jobs. I think offshoring jobs is a bad idea because it puts Americans out of work. Why would I think handing someone a free diploma is going to insure that I have a job? We all know that he's not going to be making as much as someone who's been in the field for some time, and with the current trend of employment, that makes the graduate with the crackerjack degree a prime target to replace the more expensive asset.

Second, there won't be any jobs for them in short order. If you give free degrees to everyone who wants to go into the math and science fields the nation will be saturated with math and science graduates that work at TGI Fridays and McDonalds. I worked at McD's while in high school and college. I worked with a very bright guy that graduated with a degree in Political Science. When I asked him what kind of job that degree prepared him for, he answered "fast food and gas stations." Churning out more college graduates isn't going to "make the United States more globally competitive, particularly with countries like China and India" when we are shipping all those math and science related jobs to countries like China and India. Talk about cutting off your arm because your finger won't stop bleeding.

Third, welfare sucks because it's not enough to actually live off of. Welfare sucks for so many more reasons that this, but if you give away college degrees, you devalue their worth. It's the same kind of stuff you see when they raise minimum wage, or the base welfare handout. since MW goes up, grocery stores, restaurants, and other industries that depend on MW workers, have to raise their prices. Generally the people that make more than MW don't get raises as well, so the result is a net 0 change in the standard of living for the MW workers, and a decrease in SoL for those above MW.

I guess that won't matter anyway, because the Math and science grads will be moving to India to work at the outsource location.

Fourth, Socialism is a bad idea! Anytime you tell the masses that all the blood sweat and tears they have shed is going to pay for the expenses of someone who hasn't lifted a finger in his/her life you are asking for trouble. If they won't be a productive member of society, let them starve. A college degree does not make them productive. A job does. Get one to pay for school.

And to the idea that rural teachers need help, here's an idea. Pay the teachers in the cities less, and give it to the rural teachers. Better yet, cut the salaries of all the teachers and put the money into the coffers for supplies. Why is it that I'm required to buy dry erase markers and a ream of copier paper for my son's school supplies? The guy in charge of budgeting is putting dollar signs in the wrong columns. If you need paper to teach, and can't afford to buy it with the huge budget you already have, the principal can take a 100 dollar pay cut to buy a box or two of paper.

Max, making me spend more in taxes to put some kids through college for jobs that aren't here is stupid.

The Almighty Yuan?

OK, now this is a slight departure from my usual blog. It probably fits better in the Paxman's rants than here on my page. But as I was skimming this article that had been linked from a relatively unrelated article on Slashdot, I paused ELR and payed closer attention.

So there's a whole bunch of doomsday speak in there, and at the risk of sounding like a wacko conspiracy theorist I am not planning on delving in too deep.

A couple choice quotes:

...Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

...Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.

Though, when Mrs. Clinton's stance was made plain, I was ready to discard the entire article out of hand.

foreign control over 44pc of the US national debt had left America acutely vulnerable.

has called for restrictive legislation to prevent America being "held hostage to economic decicions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo".

Ok, so the brains behind the campaign let her know there is an issue, and in perfect leftie form, her first reaction is to pass more laws. There's a good idea, let's remove more freedom from the American people, and legislate the ability of people to profit off of the American economy.

Hey stupid! Rather than making it illegal for foreigners to own that much American capital, why don't you come up with a solution that makes it possible for Americans to benefit from foreign holdings of American dollars? Why don't you make it possible for Americans to create new businesses and move into a position that would make it a ridiculous notion for China to even try something like this. I mean what is wrong with economic prosperity? What is wrong with America being wealthy enough to tell China to stuff it?

Stop passing laws and let us earn some money!

Innocence and the price of adulthood.

I have this thing for old movies. Not just any old movie mind you. I'm not about to sit through some old chick flick just cause it was made in 1972, no (though I did get through Funny Face a while back). My thing is old WWII and cold war movies.

I don't know. Maybe because I'm a product of the 80's, and grew up when the evil empire was the enemy, and "The Bomb" was a reality we were all waiting to see drop. I remember drills in grade school where we hid under our desks for safety. I remember them called earthquake drills. I grew up in the Willamette Valley, and I imagine we had a couple quakes when I was growing up. We even lived in the shadow of Mt. St. Helens (I remember the drive to church the morning of May 18, 1980), but the only one I can actually remember was after I was married. You might recall the video of the meeting at Microsoft with ceiling tiles falling and lights swaying. No, I'm pretty sure "earthquake drill" was the euphemism for "we're not going to survive the blast wave anyway."

I think though, that most of us that grew up so near the end of the cold war either tiring of the eternal paranoia, or began to see through it all. I distinctly remember having quite a fascination with the USSR and Russian culture. Not a "know your enemy" fascination, but a very real curiosity about the people, the history, and basic culture. I seem to remember a difference in the Russia we were taught about, when compared to the "Evil Empire" portrayed in a lot of the movies and stories that came out of the 50's and 60's. Maybe it was the gradual liberalization of the universities; the shift toward the socialist agenda that seems to permeate secondary education. I don't know. And honestly I was far to young to care at the time. I do know that I still enjoy a good cold war spy drama, or some post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout mutant flick.

So when The Day After was on some cable movie channel, I had to set the DVR and catch it again. Steve Gutenberg in a non-Police Academy 17 role. Jason Robards, John Cullum, John Lithgow. What a great cast! Amy Madigan, whom I remember from her Oscar level performance opposite John Candy in Uncle Buck.

As I was watching this movie over a span of about 3 days (I have 3 small children and a wife, I don't' get uninterrupted time), I marveled at the story telling. Rather than starting the movie out with a car chase and an automatic weapons fight (don't get me wrong, there's always room for more machine gun fights in movies) they spent the first hour or so introducing the characters.

I think I fell asleep the last time I saw a "modern" movie that tried this tactic. "7 years to fall asleep on the couch" is the title in my circle of friends. You figure it out. There might have been a story there. All I saw were 3 hours of mountains, and the insides of my eyelids. I grew up in the Willamette Valley, I know what mountains look like. I suppose if I had spent my entire life in New York City I'd call a 45 minute helicopter pan of some mountain range "brilliant film making." Really it was a director that was far to lazy to use the cutting machine for the purpose it was designed for, and a producer that should have just slapped the director in the face. That movie needed some nuclear detonations in a bad way!

Again, you have me on a tangent. I'm reminded of a humanities professor I had at Milligan College, but that's a blog for another day.

Back to The Day After.

So I sat down this evening to finally finish the movie, and my 3 year old wanted to sit with me, so she eventually started paying a bit of attention. She began to get excited when the missles started launching.

"Two rockets."

"Those are rockets!"

"Rockets fly up in the sky!"

"Rockets are fireworks! They're pretty!"

When you look at that beautiful face so filled with joy over a couple dozen ICBM's you just want to protect her from "the end of the world as we know it" just a little while longer.

Ain't she precious?

My wife has been bugging me to put up pictures. Here's a teaser.

Hopefully I'll get www.kingdomofd.com updated in the next couple of days.

MMMM! iSmoothie.

I was directed to this at the top of the Slashdot page this morning. As much as I'm avoiding the iCrap hype, this had to be shared.

Will it Blend?

Apparently this guy puts all sorts of not-normally-blendable items into his blender and reduces them to dust.

Kinda handy to have this guy around I think.

We the People

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

If you have talked to me during June or July, you have probably heard me relate the story of how my family spends the 4th of July. If you haven't, then you're about to hear it, with a little bonus at the end.

A few years back I had the opportunity to spend the 4th with my in-laws in Montana. In the area they live, most fireworks are allowed. Needless to say, for a boy from the cities of Oregon, anything aerial is just about the coolest thing I can think of. So I can't think of a much better family tradition than getting together and blowing something up.

And so it began.

Pretty much all the guys in my extended family are fans of fireworks. And I don't mean the kind of fans that buy a hat for the team they plan on rooting for while standing in line at the stadium. No, I'm talking the kind of fan that can dress from head to toe in a particular teams gear. Not just shoes and hat, but socks, gloves, underwear, and all the trimmings. They like fireworks. They know the best places to go and get certain kinds of fireworks.

Now I had seen fireworks, and I fancied myself worldly when it came to fireworks. I mean, I hadn't actually launched an inch-and-a-half mortar myself, but I sure had fired my share of bottle rockets and Black Cats!

Well, we all spent a little too much on the pyro-technics, and invited the cousins, aunts & uncles, and a few close friends over. And I gotta say, we had a pretty respectable pile of fireworks between us.

At dusk we started burning off the fountains, and the parachutes, and setup half-a-dozen mortar tubes. And we noticed one neighbor doing the same. And the competition was on.

We'd fire off a volley, and he'd follow it with one a little larger. So we'd have to show him up a bit, and he'd up the ante on the next one. And so it went for the next 45 minutes or so.

I had so much fun that for the next few days we were talking about what we'd do next year.

And each year we've stepped it up a little more. This year the tally was about $3000 to supply the show. And what a show it was! Just under 90 minutes of pyro-technic goodness!

We've taken to blocking off a section of road to prevent people from trying to drive through the staging area, as well as general safety. We probably had between 70-80 people present to watch the show directly. However, the road all the way out of the sub-division, and about a half mile down was packed with cars. The neighbors beyond the blockade pulled their lawn chairs out to watch. Best of all, We heard about a number of cars that stopped in the local department store parking lot to watch the show.

My kids were very excited for the show this year. They started asking about it at about 6pm. It was everything they could do not to spontaneously combust from the anticipation. I hope we didn't disappoint them.

But this morning I had a wonderful opportunity to talk with my son about why we do all of this.

He knew we were doing the fireworks to celebrate the fourth of July, but didn't really understand why the 4th is important. I got a chance to talk to him about America's birthday, and how the Founding Fathers wrote our constitution, and started this country to protect freedom and liberty. About how we light off fireworks to celebrate the freedoms we have in America.

He's six, so I'm not sure how much he really understood, as his idea of freedom is choosing chocolate milk in his Happy meal. But he listened, and I got to tell my son a little bit about the history of this great country.

If you haven't, take a few minutes to talk with your children about why we celebrate the birth of America. You might be surprised by how much they understand. And they just might grow up to be a driving force for political change in this country.

Neglect

I'm a bad blogger.

Sure I have opinions, I just don't take enough time to share them with you. For that I apologize.

For this though, I have no apology...

Who else is sick of hearing about the iPhone?

Passing of a childhood hero

Just in case you missed it, I'm a nerd.

In college I came to the realization that I always had been, but also learned that I didn't care. I love science and science stuff (though begging my parents for a chemistry set proved fruitless, and I see now how insightful they were). I took extra science classes when ever I could, and even put them in place of easy electives. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.


I'm sure there's something genetic that pre-disposes me to Nerddom. Give the Eggheads long enough with their Human Genome Project and they'll find some link. I however think Don Herbert had a little something to do with that as well.

For those of you that missed the nerd bus in the 80's Don is better known as Mr. Wizard. He had a great show in the 70's and 80's that was 30 minutes of science goodness. I can still remember vividly two of his experiments. One, he had a kid stand on a walkway about 35 feet above a jar of grapejuice. he had that kid try to drink it through a straw, though he couldn't. He then stuck a pump at the top and showed that it couldn't draw the juice significantly further up the straw (it's an air pressure thing.) The other was a demonstration where he covered the bottom of a paper towel tube with tissue paper, he jammed a stick through it, and of course the paper tore. But then he filled the tube with a couple inches of salt, and it was enough to disperse the force, and prevent the tissue from tearing.

I couldn't get enough of the show growing up, but missed many of them due to the schedule a child must keep (apparently Educational programming is not the same as school when you're grounded from TV. My parents were so unfair!).

The sad news is that Don Herbert died Tuesday at the age of 89, from Bone Cancer. What one man can say they turned 2 generations of youth on to science? What an amazing life!

Lucky for the world at large, these episodes are available for purchase, including the show he did in the 50's-60's! Check out Mr. Wizard Studios for the DVD's. They make great Fathers Day or birthday gifts.

Goodbye Mr. Wizard. We will miss you.

Humbled

What a weekend.

Wow.

Just... wow.

I have to say, I'm pretty cynical about most things. Not exactly one of my best personality traits, but it often makes for good conversations, I guess. But today I have something to brighten your week.

Church this Sunday was amazing. Yeah the sermon was good. Steve had some excellent things to say in his usual, old-school way. But that's not the Steve that made an impact this week.

I play my electric guitar in the worship band 3 weeks a month. Some days it's a bit tough to get up, arrive at 7am for rehearsal, and be happy for the next 5 hours (we can debate the difference between acting happy when you're not, and all the finer points of being genuine in front of a crowd when you don't "feel" like it, at a later date). Most mornings I do my best to make it through practice, and by 3rd service, I'm pretty locked in. But this week, I was having a rough time of it. Aside from my attitude which I have been struggling with lately, I was in awe for a good portion of the service. Not like hero worship awe, but just freaking amazed at the scope and depth of the situation I was witnessing, and praising God for the whole thing.

Let me back up a little. Here's the history side (yes Mr. Frey, you were right, it's important, I deserved that grade from your class and take back all the comments about irrelevance I made) so that you can catch up if you're not "in the know."

We have 2 primary electric guitar players in the band. I myself play rhythm and Steve plays mostly lead. We both fill in with acoustic when necessary. Steve is the guy that stands in the back tearing it up, content to be ignored and left to do his thing. I'm the dork in the front, bouncing around expressing myself visually, as well as musically. I don't know Steve very well, and I love to give him a hard time about playing Fender's (Godin ftw!), and we both seem to have fallen in love with Digitech's RP series processors. He loves Journey tunes, so I make fun of him for playing "girley music." Though he did loan me a Red CD Thursday that I am completely enjoying. Maybe he doesn't have such bad taste in music after all. =)

But about a year ago he let us all know that he had cancer. I don't know all the medical nitty gritty, but the growth was in his tongue, and they were concerned about treatment. The doctors scheduled him for chemo or radiation (I don't remember) but were worried that if that failed the only option would be surgery. If surgery were performed, he would probably lose so much of his tongue that eating would be difficult and speaking would be impossible. I covered guitar for most of that summer while he was in treatment. We got updates on his progress, and things went well. Last I heard he's cancer free (though he does have to do the usual visits and rechecks).

So there I stood Sunday morning playing my guitar preparing for the special music and I was just amazed. Steve had written, and was going to sing, the song we were going to play. He strapped on his acoustic guitar, stepped forward to the mic, and began singing and playing this amazing tune. I couldn't get it out of my mind how amazing this was. Here's a guy that just a year ago was wondering how much longer he'd be able to talk, now standing in front of a band singing a song he wrote.

And I just can't stop thinking about how cool that is.

Sure puts getting upset about the toy's on the living room floor in a little better perspective, doesn't it?

Spiderman 3: my review.

MINOR SPOILER WARNING. I'll try to avoid major spoilers, but I'm assuming you've seen the previews on TV or in front of another movie. We know Venom, Sandman and Harry Osborne are in this one. Get over it.

OK, I'm sure the 'net is inundated with Spiderman 3 reviews. And a pretty good take is over at Paxman's Blog, but I wanted to take issue with this particular review.

Specifically with his comment: "Topher Grace delivered a very believable performance."

He has not seen Spiderman 3. If he had, this statement would not have appeared in his blog.

I've seen the movie. I enjoyed it. Absolutely must add to my collection when it is released. Best Spiderman EVAR? Meh, I'm not sure I can decide that right now.

Too many Villians? I disagree. I really think they dodged a bullet here too. During the scene where Sandman is trying to coalesce into a man-like shape for the first time, my wife leans over and asks me "What are his super powers?"

"Pretty much that." He's a guy made of sand. Not a whole heap of plot attached to that one. I'm very glad they didn't try to develop one.

Though there were quite a few slow spots that could have better served the movie had they wound up on the cutting room floor. Well, pretty much every scene chronicling the dysfunctional, junior high maturity relationship that Pete and MJ have.

Paxman make some good points about communication, blah blah blah. He's frikkin Spiderman, there are no prior examples For MJ of how a romantic relationship should be with a superhuman boy. Life will be slightly different than if you were dating, say, the astronaut son of the EIC of the largest tabloid in NYC, or maybe even the President of the United States. I would have to say, dating a human spider hybrid is probably going to be a touch different than anything you've ever dealt with. And just in case you weren't following my line of reasoning, while getting fired from a schlocky second rate off Broadway musical is emotionally difficult, it's pretty lame in comparison to say, the destruction of NYC, or a pile of 400 grit doin' the old smash and grab at First National. MJ, if you were looking for someone who will empathize with your failure, and try to get you back on your feet, perhaps you should have stuck with Harry. Instead you chose YFNSM who has to save the planet from consumption by the fusion experiment of a raving lunatic. Slightly more pressing than whether you're feeling insecure about your career.

Before you get too critical, I know why they put it in there. Because those of us that grew up with Pete in comics and on the small screen are now married, or aspire to be. And the company of that beautiful woman is generally preferable to that of 8 other overweight sweaty comicbook nerds. So they write a script that will appeal to the better half, and we get dates! My point is simply that I don't remember MJ being that shallow and trite. Spiderman wants you to bear his children, who cares about Broadway?

Sorry, got a little man-crush going there.

But back to Topher Grace.

To review, Paxman wrote: "Topher Grace delivered a very believable performance."

Yeah, I haven't seen a performance that believeable since Keanu tried to recite Shakespeare in Much ado about Nothing. Surrounded by brilliance (Michael Keaton, Emma Thompson, Kenneth Branagh, Denzel Washington, Robert Sean Leonard, Kate Beckinsale) Keanu made me want to throw a brick through the TV and find an Icepick to scrape out the parts of my brain where that memory was located. The only convincing performance Keanu has is as Ted "Theodore" Logan in the Bill and Ted's movies. The brilliance of the Wachowski brothers is not in the crafting of a fascinating post-apocolyptic world where hackers walk a virtual earth stuck in the late 1990's, fighting for freedom of thought and escape from the Global UPS, but in writing a script that Keanu could deliver without looking like a drooling labrador. I own all three matrix movies and am amazed every time I watch them. Ted saved the world.

Someone should find the casting director for S3 and punch him in the face. Seriously. I was appalled by the terrible performance put forth by TG, to the point that I'm amazed it got past the censors. I expect performances like that from actors in George Lucas films. He couldn't pick an actor at the SAG awards. But in general, Spiderman movies are pretty good. And this is why I'm blaming Topher and not the director.

James Franco.

He delivered a universally flat, emotionless performance in the first two movies. If my high school director had seen something like that in one of his stage plays, he'd have thrown pencils at him. But he had a small part, it wasn't that big of a deal.

Yet, in S3 Franco pulled of a pretty good performance. He's not going to be taking home an Oscar for it. But I wasn't rolling my eyes after every line, and I actually found myself liking his oafish, happy "everything is great"character. The director seems to have done a great job playing to JF's lack of talent. And yet Topher couldn't tie his shoes convincingly in this one.

"But, he was supposed to be unstable, over the top" you might be thinking. And I would agree. I offer Jim Carey's Riddler, or Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrance. They were believably insane. I knew there was something wrong with them. Things were not going to go well. Not so with TG. His character was simply weird. In the church scene, he was not fervent, or off center, he wasn't even creepy, he was simply strained, forced, weak. There was nothing in his eyes, expressions, or manner that indicated sincerity. He was simply reciting his lines, and not well at that. Not only is Topher Grace not in the same league as either of these characters, but shouldn't be allowed in the same room.

I find myself searching around for that icepick hoping I get lucky and scrape the right parts of my memory the first time. I'd hate to lose Serenity or Band of Brothers.

Transforming Friday workday into excitement

Ok, I used to watch transformers every day when I was younger. I mean what kid my age didn't? The very idea of a car, dinosaur, or gigantic insect changing into an enormous robotic being is enough to get even my 30 something brain cranking! Not only were they extremely cool technology, they were aliens!! Lasers, space wars, fast cars! Oh, man these guys were sitting on a gold mine. I bet they had their own money mint in the back room of the Transformers Inc. office building. Right next to the life sized Optimus Prime.

The other evening, while watching TV, I got to see a short Transformers preview. I jumped up off the couch and stepped closer to the Television so I wouldn't miss a nanosecond. HOLY COW!!!! That jet that transformed was just about enough to make me a happy man had I died right there!!! Any fears that they were going to make them look like the original cartoons has left my brain. No these aren't going to be obviously CG (though they obviously are CG). The short clip I saw on TV almost had me looking out the window to see the Constructicons walk by!

So, it looks like the full length trailer for the upcoming Transformers movie has hit the net.

Talk about making my day!!!

After watching the TV preview my wife informed me that I have to see the movie before taking my 6 year old to see it, to make sure it won't give him nightmares. Can't say that my wife requiring me to watch Transformers twice depresses me all that much.

Nergon, let's plan on doing this one together. I doubt our wives want to wipe the drool from our chins...

Happy Birthday Pong!

So, I'm a slashdot junkie. Whenever I log into a pc 3 webpages get opened. Google, Gmail and slashdot.

While getting my fix this morning, I came across this posting

Videogames Turn 40

There's a great piece of history for all us gamers. Hard to not look back at all the years of great games and smile fondly.

I remember all the hours I wasted at my Commodore Vic20, keying in the code for some game printed in a computer magazine, then looking for the typo's when it didn't work correctly.

How many remember that? Don't be shy, let me see your hands!

Have I mentioned lately that I love my job?

So I was approached today by my boss, who asked me to assist with an interview.

Now, I've taken part in my share of interviews, though up until this point, it had always been on the interviewee side of the conference table. I've had some interesting ones, but for the most part, I think I interview pretty well. Sometimes I talk too much, but that's a nervous habit thing.

Heh, I can still remember an interview I had with the Mac support group at HP. Now, before I get crucified by all those that know me, and are familiar with my opinion of Macs (Steve Jobs is the Antichrist, but I suppose that's the subject of another blog), I want to qualify this paragraph by admitting it was for a blue badge job.

For those of you reading this that are not familiar with the contractors life at hp, the actual HP employees were issued an ID badge with a blue border, as opposed to the orange or brown border of the SCC's. What that meant in the workplace was that it became next to impossible to get fired. Seriously. I mean you always hear about some guy 3 departments removed getting escorted out for surfing porn during work hours, or about somebody smuggling Post-it's out in coat pockets. But I don't recall anyone I worked with actually saying they knew someone first hand that had been dismissed. Though, I can remember one individual, who was by no means the top performer of the contractors in Department X, change nearly overnight, with the receipt of a blue badge. Metrics changed from 6 hours logging calls to perhaps 3 or 4 a day. Not 3 or 4 hours, but 3 or 4 calls a day. It was difficult to receive a pink slip from these guys.

However, I do recall one person getting the boot during my tenure on the 2nd floor of building 4. I wasn't privy to all the nitty gritty details, but something about hacking during his shift. The rumor I heard included a bank calling HP and questioning IT about the repeated intrusions. Totally hearsay, grain of salt required.

In any event that interview definitely gets filed in the "what were you thinking" drawer. But I digress...

Back to the point, I was asked to assist on this interview, with no outstanding instructions. I asked some generic questions, provided some what-if's and chatted with this fellow to gauge his technical agility. Then, I filled my boss in with my impressions. I get to do it again this afternoon.

For those of you who conduct interviews a fair amount, do you have any advice on what direction to go for the technical aspect of an interview (I work for an IT support company)? For those of you who are interviewed on a regular basis, what are things you liked or hated about a particular interview? What can I avoid during an interview to not look like a chump and still get a good honest assessment of the technical aptitude?