This is Epth Nation 2.6

The New Breed of Blog

Movie 17: For Your Consideration

(no, I don’t just see movies these days…there’s more stuff to post, it’s just that these are slightly easier to knock out quickly.  Let’s all take a step back and enjoy what we have, shall we?)

Being a fan of all of the films in the Christopher Guest movie series, it’s somewhat surprising that it’s taken me this long to see For Your Consideration.  This is why I’m doing this project, of course — to see all the movies I wanted to watch but never did.  And boy, am I glad I saw this movie.  It’s not as good as Best in Show, but way better than A Mighty Wind.  That makes it somewhere in the middle, which is still pretty darn good.  Had there been more of Nina and Monk (pictured above), it may have ended up my favorite.

For Your Consideration is about the filming of a horrible movie named “Home for Purim” that starts getting Oscar buzz.  It’s another one of those “Hollywood insider” type of movies where they dramatically point out that everyone in the entertainment business is self-absorbed and corrupted by money.  It’s a pretty common topic for movies these days, and it’s not necessarily something to which Pete in Peoria can relate.  What makes For Your Consideraton worth seeing is the regular Christopher Guest cast (plus some fantastibritish new additions), because they’re consistently funny as hell.  And what’s the #1 requirement of a comedy, friends?  That it be funny.

Some great performances in this one:

Fred Willard, as the faux-hawked host of an “ET”-style entertainment show.  That’s right, Fred Willard with a faux-hawk.  How can you beat that?

That one blonde girl who’s always in these things, as a dumb blonde movie producer.

Catherine O’ Hara, who successfully simulates plastic surgery for the second half of the movie by holding her face back.  It’s amazing.

And lastly…

Nina Conti and her monkey, who came out of nowhere to do the best weather forcast ever.  When the monkey asked, “Where does wind come from?” I knew my life would never be the same.  Why doesn’t every station have a ventriloquist with a monkey doing the weather?  I (really vaguely) remember Albert the Alley Cat on a station in Milwaukee when I was growing up, but he wasn’t that funny.  Since TV news is failing, why don’t they do more bits?   And this monkey girl is hypnotic.  They have an extra on the DVD where Christopher Guest asks the monkey questions for like 6 minutes, and it serenely answers in its amazing Indian Sean Connery voice.  You really have to see it to believe it.  That’s why I provided the above link.

Now go see the rest of the movie.

Movie 16: Darkon

(He’s blue, ba-ba-di bab-ba-doo)

I feel especially qualified to comment on the movie Darkon because of all the nerd cred I’ve accrued over the years.  I do work with computers, after all.  And I have played role-playing games.  Therefore, I think I understand the deep inner-workings of men (and a few women) who would form a completely fake medieval territory in their spare time.  That’s right — they formed their own land, on top of, you know, America.  But don’t worry — it’s not illegal if it’s imaginary.  Keep that in mind as I explain this.

Essentially, Darkon is a role-playing game come to life.  “People” play “characters” and are divided into “countries” with “armies” under “gods” that have “wars” for “land” and “resources.”  They even have fake currency!  It’s all well-organized, and there are strict rules governing everything, from costumes to battles.  These are some no-nonsense nerds, let me tell you.  Everyone has names that are straight out of boring fantasy novels — “Bannor,” “Keldar,” “Croaker,” etc.  It’s all about Serious Imagination as opposed to Funny Imagination, and therefore I was bristling at it for the entire movie.

I’m beginning to really dig documentaries.  I can’t remember the last time I saw a bad one, or one that didn’t engage my mind.  They always get me thinking.  So, what did Darkon make me think about?  Well…

1) These people, especially the leaders, spend a LOT of TIME playing it. They make flyers, organize battles, pay off people with fake money, plan and make high-sounding speeches to inspire “troops,” keep track of what fake country owns what fake piece of land, and have overnight campouts once a month IN CHARACTER.  Talk about a beating-and-a-half.  Two straight days of living in tents and watching other people (and your own self) live out weird D&D-related fantasies.  Wait…that sounds like a renaissance faire!

2) The movie tried to compare the fake-life and real-life accomplishments of the two main characters, as a way to make the point that “People are what they are, and no fake country is going to change that.”  The corporate ubernerd ends up beating the pants off the guy whose brother kicked him out of the family business, just like in real life.  It’s a bit like an action movie where the bad guys win, actually.  Not the best move, from a filmmaking point of view.  The director should have paid people off in fake money to get a better outcome.  Now that would have been a twist.

3) Poingant scene: When the “loser” (named Bannor — not Bruce Banner, or even Banner, but Bannor) goes to Denny’s to meet with one of his friends who has just betrayed him in the game, and they have an awkward conversation where the real and role-playing worlds collide.  Bannor/Loser really takes it personally, which leads one to suspect that his interest in the game has reached unhealthy levels.  It would be like me getting mad at the fake Noah Bromley* for killing me in Unreal Tournament.

4) Some of the “people” in the game have real girlfriends/boyfriends/spouses, and some have fake “in-game” relationships, and some have both(!)  Makes me wonder how many divorces Darkon has caused.

5) These guys really, really like Braveheart.

6) All that praying to fake “gods” was funny.  The most powerful country’s “god” is a griffon named Kodos.  All that careful serious planning, and they end up naming their deity after one of the aliens on The Simpsons.  Hah-hah.

I liked this movie a lot.  If you want to see what happens when nerds grow up, gain resources, and take their nerdiness to its logical conclusion, I recommend it.  However, if fake pontification and/or people in blue makeup bother you, then you should probably steer clear.

Now I’m off to play some Doom…

*Way, way, too far inside.  I can only hope Noah Bromley googles himself and wonders who the heck I am.

The Word for the Milwaukee Bucks: Change

Remember that time, when Bill Clinton said the word “Change” and we all voted for him because we love change?  Well, in the spirit of that awful US decision I give you a fundamentally better decision.  No, this isn’t about McCain vs. Obama, or even Irish vs. African.  It’s about the Milwaukee Bucks.  You should have seen that coming by the title of this post.

The Milwaukee Bucks have made wholesale coaching and front-office changes this off-season, and starting with tonight’s NBA Draft, it’s the players’ turn.  What I don’t want to see is a line-up that has the same 15 no-defense scrubs that were on the team last year + Joe Alexander.  The good thing is, the Bucks seem to abhor that idea more than I do.  Everywhere I turn I see a trade rumor.  Will the Bucks trade up for “Juice Clinic” OJ Mayo?  Will they trade down to the middle of the first round and get that skinny kid from LSU that nobody likes anymore?  Will they trade for Kirk Hinrich?  Will they trade Redd?  Will they be able to get Gadzuric or Simmons off the team when they get rid of Chaz Villanueva?  Does anyone have a handle on what’s going on?

Anyway, change.  And not the bad kind of change, either.  For example, don’t make it like the turkish coin I mistakenly thought was a US quarter.  That’s bad change.  You get the idea.

Cautiously,

Mike Pape

Cops Count Cats

Dallasites have an addiction to other people’s stuff.  Every morning I wake up and turn on the news, only to find that 1-10 ATMs have been ripped out of convenience stores overnight and thieves have destroyed some poor business’ air conditioning unit to steal the copper wire inside.  I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing, a drug thing, a southern thing, or what — I just know I nail down all my posessions every day out of a fear of massive and ubiquitous theft.

They could pass a law to make it harder for copper stealers to sell to scrap yards (and the cops are pushing hard for it), but instead Dallas has decided to cap the total number of pets in one household at 6 and force all dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered.  That’ll solve the great pet crisis we’re all feeling*, but what about the people taking other people’s stuff?  Don’t we need freedom from them?

Dallas has passed laws forbidding smoking in restaurants, It’s passed laws that forbid talking on cell phones in school zones.  It’s about to pass laws that forbid menageries.  How about we actually tackle a problem that affects people in a really adverse way?  What’s worse — secondhand smoke or having to replace an air conditioner unit in 100 degree weather?  Living next door to 7 cats, or having a truck drive through your convenience store window?  Where’s the perspective?

Movie 15: Untraceable

Untraceable is a movie.  It features a female detective who tries to catch a serial killer.  At some point, the serial killer decides to make things personal between him and the female detective.  This movie has been made at least 100 times in the past 5 years, so I think you know what happens.  The movie comes pre-spoiled, as it were.  Here’s a picture of Diane Lane from the movie, so this post doesn’t seem so worthless:

She’s got a gun, and she’s worried about her daughter.  Yes, they put her cute little daughter in jeopardy, because this script was create in a special room where all new or original ideas are immediately destroyed by small green aliens made of poo.  I don’t know why they’re made of poo.  Perhaps the real question is, why was this movie ever made?

I apologize to you if you liked this movie.  It’s really not that horrible.  If I had never seen a movie before, I might have enjoyed it.

This Just In: Early Adopters Think They’re Better Than You

I’ve got a lot of technology to talk about these days, so it looks like I might take the old electric paddles to the tech blog here very soon.  I recently discovered:  KDE 4 (interesting), Object Dock (greatness), Firefox 3 (newness), and many other things that would make your eyes roll up in your head and produce in you a technological coma.   That’s why I have a tech blog.

Speaking of technology, some magazine somewhere did a study on so-called “early adopters” — you know, those people who get their iPhones the day they come out.  Turns out they’re not only young and affluent, they’re also driven, assertive, arrogant, and the types of people that make one run and scream when one sees them coming ’round the bend.  Early adopters, of course, are saying that they “know what they want and aren’t afraid to go after it,” which in turns proves the whole point.

Belated congratulations to the Celtics and their star player Ray Allen for winning the NBA championship.  The sad part is, if the Ray Allen trade had never happened, Ray would have never gotten his ring.  Man, why did I have to bring that trade up?  Now I’m mad again.  Anyway, good job beating Kobe and his surly disposition.

AP Stands For Angry…Something?

Sometimes you have to go out and find arrogance, and sometimes it stops by for a cup of coffee and a stern hello.

As I was checking my blogs, you know, the ones I read, I came across this wonderful post at PC World:

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007122.html

It seems a web form has come to light that exposes the Associated Press’ plan to charge bloggers to excerpt AP content.  It’s deeply, deeply funny that they think they can charge $12.50 for a 5-word quotation to a blog.  I mean…wow.  Talk about pricing yourself out of the market — I mean, nobody else is charging anything.  Too funny.

Movie 14: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

Jeff Skilling, Local Douche

(This, my friends, is what arrogance looks like)

My viewing of Enron: TSGITR (heretofore referred to as just Enron) two weeks ago has become a little watershed event in my life, as it forever changed the way I view rich people, energy, business in general, the markets, and those guys you see on TV talking about investments.  I knew the generic facts about the Enron story going in:  The accounting scandal, the fact that top execs sold off millions in Enron stock and didn’t let their employees do the same, Enron CEO Ken Lay’s conviction and death,  the Bush administration’s deep connections to the company, etc.  Those things didn’t surprise me.  What got to me were two enduring images:  Enron employees calling power plants in California after deregulation and asking them to shut down for a while, then gleefully talking with each other about all the money they were about to make as rolling blackouts hit the state like a jackhammer; and, Enron uberdouche Jeffrey Skilling and all the employees who trusted him and kissed his butt to the bitter end.

I hadn’t realized to what extent Big Energy manipulated the California markets, and how much misery they caused in the name of making money.  And they even used the ensuing crisis to get Governor Gray Davis recalled in favor of the pro-deregulation Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The whole situation floored me.  It’s humanity at its most callous, and it was all caused by love of money.   Who was it that said that greed is good?  We all think that profit is an acceptable motive, but clearly it can’t be allowed to be the only motive.  Where were the curbs?  Are the robber barons still out there?  Enron was allowed to be dreadful because of laissez-faire economics, plain and simple.

The meager safeguards we had in place didn’t catch Enron until thousands of people’s lives were financially ruined.  The company used its influence to bully journalists not sympathetic to their unique brand of market manipulation, and therefore nobody noticed their strange immunity to market downturns (caused almost solely by illegal accounting practices).  It’s amazing what people will turn a blind eye to (or flat-out lie about) if money and influence is involved.

Which brings us to Jeffery Skilling, the man who everybody wanted to be.  I can’t imagine how much of his butt was kissed in the 90’s by employees and others who thought he was a genius…and all the while he was lying about the profitability of his company.  Of course, being a genius, he abruptly quit and sold his stock right before the crap hit the fan.  I could go on and on about Mr. Skilling as he’s portrayed in Enron:  His insane hubris, his internal disconnect between the truth he had to know (that Enron was failing) and the lies he was trying to get everyone else to believe, his worship of risk, his belief that he was smarter and better than everybody else, his annual firing of a certain percentage of Enron employees based on performance reviews (why do all the scuzzbags believe so strongly in Darwinism?), the fact that all the genius ideas he had turned out to be so very tragically bad, etc.  He’s truly a cautionary tale to all the d-bags out there who would flatten their own grandmothers to make a buck, or at least those who think it would be cool if their office had its own staircase.

Yeah, so go rent Enron.  I can’t say for sure that it’ll change your life, but it will make you think about capitalism and corruption.  And in an election year those are probably good things to think about.

Rich Roads vs. Poor Roads

Population by Race
White 97%
African American 0%
Native American 0%
Asian 1%
Hawaiian 0%
Other/Mixed 2%

Those not from Dallas might need some background information on this Dallasnews.com story, if they want it to make any sense at all. A city street with a toll on it? Who do these people think they are? Consider the last paragraph in this quote a teaser for the real story:

Amid widespread criticism, Highland Park has put the brakes on a proposal to toll Mockingbird Lane.

Less than a week after town officials said they wanted to study an idea to charge drivers who use the road to cut through town, town administrator George Patterson said Monday that the town is not interested in tolling it or any other roads within its borders.

Officials did not blame the negative response for their change of direction, but they acknowledged receiving much criticism from nonresidents.

“We’ve sort of flagrantly been accused of thinking about ourselves to the detriment of others,” Highland Park Mayor Bill Seay said.

The town has had a long history of conflict between residents inside and outside the town over what purpose Mockingbird serves – whether it’s a local residential street or should play a bigger role in regional transportation.

What people don’t realize is that all those people drive on Mockingbird lane because it’s smack dab in the middle of a popular part of the city. It’s not like Highland Park is a remote suburb to which white people have fled. These rich guys decided to build their paradise right in the middle of a major metropolitan area. OF COURSE YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TRAFFIC! YOU LIVE IN AN AREA THAT PEOPLE WANT TO GET THROUGH!

Compounding the problem is Dallas’ atrocious system of roads, which provide no suitable East-West streets between downtown and Walnut Hill Lane — a span of at least 6 miles. The biggest alternative, Northwest Highway, is DeathCongested from 7-10 and 3-7 every day. Lovers Lane inexplicably goes down to one stoplight-besieged lane for a mile, making it virtually impassable. Then you have this Mockingbird Lane, which Highland Park wants to make into a toll road even though it sucks (and has been closed for a few months anyway). South of Mockingbird (or SoMo, as the locals say), the streets turn all curvy and shoot at weird tangential angles, which makes getting anywhere a near-impossible chore.

It’s no coincidence that the first East-West road north of the lily-white “Park Cities” is the first road that makes any sense. North of Walnut Hill, there are good roads every mile. Why can’t Dallas have a good road? I mean, what the heck is this city’s problem?

But we’re getting a little off topic here, so let’s get back to Highland Park’s arrogance. Many of the town’s residents don’t see anything wrong with taxing people who drive through their city. I’d like to get inside that mindset and roll around a while, just to see how it feels. I can’t even picture coming to such a conclusion. They must really, really hate the unwashed people of Dallas. Thankfully, those unwashed cretins hated them back and quickly put the kibosh on their evil plans. If enacted, this plan could have started all-out fargon war between Highland Park and Dallas proper, and who knows what that would have led to? Annexation? The People’s Republic of Highland Park? A tax on skin pigment? The mind boggles.

Holy Crap Don’t Try to Use Wordpress and Opera

Taking a short break from arrogance week to write:

You know those keys on your keyboard that do stuff?  I.e., in every word processor ever made the “return” key does a carriage return?  Well, in Opera, when you press the return key, you move the cursor to the beginning of the paragraph and drop the current paragraph down a line.  Also, hitting the “tab” key from the title line will highlight the title line for no reason.  They didn’t tell me this when they offered Opera as a free download.