Nothing is new
Enough seriosity for awhile. 
5.31.05 @ 1:45 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
destinations
present
past
books
movies
television
Dingo's HamsterWatch
Pogo Tips & Tricks
link o' the day (see all)
visit the Apple Store
cam du jour (see all)
Trafalgar Square, London streaming
google earth (see all)
'open' will launch your GEarth, or 'save' to your desktop to view later.
Google Earth is now included free in the Google Pack
BabelFish Translator
design-hosting
Memorial Day
I have never understood war.
We teach our children not to hit or shove to get their way. We chastise them for bullying, for using a "show of strength" to win over weaker children. Yet as a nation, these things are deemed ok.
An adult can get arrested, jailed, and sued for assaulting another. Yet as a nation, these things are deemed ok.
Of course the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington were heinous, and yet, we have all been taught that two wrongs don't make a right.
War supporters say it's a necessary evil of society, that there is no other way to settle differences between nations.. I would have thought we as a species would be more evolved than this by now. People point to the animal kingdom and say it's natural, this hostility within species. Yet we pride ourselves as being "better" than the animals we share the planet with in most every other way.
We were all taught in school about the great Cradle of Civilization, the Tigris and Euphrates Valley of ancient Mesopotamia. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run through what is now Iraq; Baghdad sits on the banks of the Tigris. Is it ironic that bombsights are now focused on the "Cradle of Civilization", or that parents read their children bedtime stories about Ali Baba, Sinbad, and Sheherezade after watching the war on the nightly news? Is it any more ironic that we dropped immunization supplies for children's diseases over Baghdad just a few months before we began dropping bombs on those same children?
Many wars have been fought in the name of religion, and in many more wars, including this current one, religious differences are at least a subtle undertone of justifying warfare; and yet virtually every religion that wars are fought over teach that killing is wrong. War is just legalized killing, and legalizing something doesn't make it right.
In particular I don't understand those individuals, groups, and power-holders who have put the USA's recent wars into place and who support them, and at the same time proclaim that abortion is murder, that killing an innocent life is wrong. I don't understand the duality of their logic that says "killing is ok, but killing is not ok."
Nevertheless I salute those servicemen and women who have lost their lives in the armed forces, particularly those who were drafted and served against their will. It's all such a waste of humanity, of individuality, and of the vast unknown potential of those who died too soon.
And I am a bit saddened that for many, "Memorial Day" has come to mean nothing more than a day off work, a long weekend, and a barbecue.
"Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it"
More people vote for "American Idol" than for the Presidency. Most who survived World War I - the "Great War", the "Worst War", the "War to End All Wars" - have died, and those who survived World War II are following all too quickly. Many high school students do not know what the Holocaust was.
Yes, the dual atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II, but at what cost? 45,000 and 22,000 instant deaths respectively, plus 19,000 and 17,000 more in the following four months, plus thousands of deaths from the deadly effects of radiation later.. not to mention the untold injuries, and of course, two thriving city centers - not military installations - that were completely destroyed. The only "weapons of mass destruction" of this scale used against humanity were used by the USA. Would WWII have ended if those bombs had been dropped on us? I have been to both cities, and it was literally a life-changing experience. I can't recommend highly enough a visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and each of their Peace Parks at their respective "ground zero" bomb epicenters.
In the years following WWII, atomic bomb testing was performed on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. This photo shows the crater left by the "Bravo" hydrogen detonation on March 1, 1954 which wiped out three islands. Descendants of the atoll's 167 residents evacuated for the nuclear testing are still waiting to return home.
Original videos of Bikini Atoll nuclear tests:
Bikini "Able" nuclear blast July 1, 1946 mpeg video
Bikini "Baker" nuclear blast July 25, 1946 mpeg video
Bikini "Bravo" hydrogen blast March 1, 1954 mpeg video
Check May 29 links for several related Keyhole views
5.29.05 @ 8:43 PM pdt [add 2 cents]
Google Earth, forced beta testing, and cyber politics
Regular readers of this site know I like Keyhole: I've posted placemarks and tours here & there and have posted screencaps of some cool Keyhole views. I'm also active on the Keyhole user forum (often duplicating posts over there & here, but hey, there probably aren't many who frequent both sites..)
For the most part the Keyhole forums are a friendly spot, with generally more "mature" users than the average net forum (you know the type - "U R sTOoPiD N SOs yER mOM!!!"). It isn't an overly chatty place, and a wealth of information about literally everything on earth can be found there. It isn't necessarily the most welcoming place to newcomers, and a few members can be a bit umm.. snobbish. (There is one old post from a senior member/moderator referencing the new member population as "Awesome in its awfulness, momentous in its ineptness, and shattering in its stupidity" <koff>.. with a p.s. "only joking".. uh-huh) But none of that's unusual for a cyber community, and most of the folks there seem pretty cool.
I'm a relatively newbie there myself, and I stayed out of it a few months ago when Google (who owns Keyhole) came out with Google Maps and its built-in aerial photos, and the forum was agog with conclusion jumping and complaining: "I paid for Keyhole! Why does Google Maps have it free now??" "Why does Google Maps have a better picture of my house than Keyhole??!!!"
Cryptic responses were posted by the forum moderators to "be patient".
I mostly stayed out of it a few weeks ago when Keyhole released a new global database with sharper imagery for most of the world, but less resolution for some US areas, and again the forum was agog: "I am sorry I paid for this now, I can't see my house!!!" "Google really messed up, my house is just a blur now!!!" A lot of new members also arrived at the forum, posting interesting & informative posts along with "I lost my virginity here" placemarks.
Again, cryptic responses to be patient, along with suggestions to get out of one's own backyard and explore the world.. and also easy directions for how to view the old database.
Last week the boards were reorganized, new categories added, and several members became moderators - without announcement, explanation or fanfare. It was all a bit mysterious and made some members feel "unspecial" but kudos to those promoted individuals. I hope it's something they asked for and/or wanted.
Then the name "Google Earth" showed up in the forum, along with questions about it that were eventually answered: it was undergoing beta testing and the testers would be using the boards, which of course generated "Why don't I get to beta test it too??!!" queries.
Today they emailed beta invites to (apparently) every registered Keyhole user with a link to download the new application, descriptions of its new bells and whistles, a notice that installing it would delete Keyhole from your system, but that Google Earth could be uninstalled and Keyhole reinstalled if you wanted to go back to it. Note however, the boards often have posts from disgruntled registered users having problems with reinstalls of Keyhole, new installs on new computers, etc. A GE uninstall/KH reinstall might go smoothly, but then again, it might not.
The download link is at a domain called uptilt.com and the email came from uptilt.com. Uptilt.com is registered to Uptilt, Inc. There is nothing in the email headers that indicate it's from Keyhole or Google, and nothing about this beta test is mentioned on the forum home page. The site www.uptilt.com says they are, among other things, "a leading provider of advanced email marketing solutions" so all things considered, it looks like high class spam. Anyone leery of clicking links in email who wasn't registered, signed in, and reading the boards would likely delete it along with the rest of the day's spam from unknown sources..
However, it seems most people are not as cautious as that, nor concerned about losing a functional program in favor of a beta one. The boards are agog once again with alternating praise and bug reports. And posts are beginning to appear in a new format that can't be read by the current, non-beta Keyhole application.
The Google Earth discussion board can't even be seen if one isn't registered and signed in to the forum, even though the new format files are appearing on all boards.. so it seems as if this is virtually a "forced beta test" - either that, or you just don't get to view many new posts (probably all posts before long) unless you dump your Keyhole program and download the beta. It all seems just a bit unprofessional for a company of Google's standing to me.
If it ain't broke, I've never been real anxious to fix it, and my Keyhole ain't broke. I've never been crazy about upgrading for upgrading's sake, nor for acquiring new bells and whistles just cuz they're available. I will likely get the new application when the old one ceases to work, possibly before, but for now I'm on board with the former complainers and wondering "Google, what have you done??!!" ..though it should be noted that I seem to be in the minority on this one: there are few visible complaints about Google Earth on the forum, and my question there about placemarks being posted in the beta-only format has had no responses as of now, nor has anyone else voiced a similar query.
Google Earth screenshot from today's email:
I'm sure there's some stuff here I would enjoy, but I know how to use Keyhole and Google simultaneously (and often do), I know how to get driving directions, I already have the new imagery database, and I'm not interested in importing GPS data. 3-D buildings might be fun, but *in select cities sounds iffy, and screenshots I've seen just show outlines. In other words, I don't think I want this program yet.
My computer provides my livelihood and I don't like to compromise its stability by downloading much of anything I don't have to, especially beta programs. But if I don't install it, it looks like I'll have to give up seeing most posts on the application's official forum before long. What's up with that?
Incidentally, Google Earth only works on Win XP or 2000, so apparently any registered Keyholers still on Win 98 or its siblings may also be out of luck soon.
5.28.05 @ 12:23 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Happy 68th birthday to the bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge opened on May 27, 1937 - 68 years ago today. That first day was for pedestrians only; the bridge was opened to cars the following day at 12 noon by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It opened ahead of schedule and under budget.. something that doesn't happen too often anymore.
The Golden Gate is an engineering marvel, particularly for its pre-computer-assisted era. It's 1.7 miles long including approaches; the suspension span itself is 1.2 miles long. The two main cables holding everything in place are each 7,650 feet long and just over 36 inches in diameter; each is made up of 27,572 galvanized wires in 61 strands. The two famous towers are 746 feet above the water, and the roadbed is 220 feet above the water.
The bridge was built to fill a need - connecting by car the city of San Francisco to Marin County and points north - but it was also one of several major US construction projects that provided jobs to thousands of desperate workers during the Great Depression. Its chief engineer was Joseph B. Strauss, who turned into reality a project that had been talked about since 1872.
The bridge is continuously painted to fight rust and corrosion. Its famous color is "international orange" which you can order at your local hardware store with PMS code 173, or the CMYK colors: Cyan 0%, Magenta: 69%, Yellow:100%, Black:6%. Make a model!
The Golden Gate is said to be the world's most popular suicide spot. An estimated 1200 people have jumped to their deaths from the bridge's walkways; interestingly, most of them stepped off the bridge toward San Francisco and the bay rather than toward the open Pacific.
Nearly 39 million vehicles crossed the bridge in its latest fiscal year ended June 2004, paying $5 each (or $4 for FasTrak passes, or $2.50 per axle for multi-axle trucks.) The bridge has seen 1.8 billion vehicle crossings since it opened. It's undergone a recent seismic retrofit, and currently the needs and costs to renovate the cables are being assessed.
The bridge celebrated its 50th anniversary on May 24, 1987 when it was closed to traffic and the roadway opened to pedestrians, bicyclists, and skaters to commemorate that first bridge walk fifty years earlier. An estimated 300,000 people walked, bicycled, and skated onto the bridge that morning, and the distinctive upward arc usually seen in the roadbed was flattened out in a dramatic homage to the structure. When the span was opened to cars again at 11am, tolls were suspended for the rest of the day.
Historic photos from the Golden Gate Bridge official site; 50th anniversary photo from San Francisco Chronicle.
5.27.05 @ 2:24 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Views: Naked Lunch
Naked Lunch 1991, dir. David Cronenberg
"Exterminate all rational thought"
William S. Burroughs' banned and frenetic book was said to be unfilmable, but David Cronenberg thrives with such challenges. What may seem on first glance like a series of unrelated bizarre and fantastic events and the ravings of drug-hazed insanity are really put together quite coherently, and we end up with a touching portrait of a tormented genius.
What we have in Naked Lunch is an autobiography of sorts, and a record of the novel's creation. It merges layers of Burroughs' reality and his psychosis seamlessly, and we marvel at how well he keeps it together, appearing lucid and "normal" while hallucinating outrageous scenarios and situations.
Many of the facts of Burroughs' life during the time he wrote Naked Lunch are presented here: working as an exterminator, his accidental fatal shooting of his wife (to which he credited his becoming a writer), his time spent in Tangier, and his ever-increasing drug addictions and paranoia.
Jack Kerouc and Allen Ginsberg are here too, appearing undisguised other than their characters' pseudonyms, which they all used for each other in their writings. It was Kerouac & Ginsberg who gathered the bits of what would become Naked Lunch when visiting Burroughs in Tangier, and encouraged him to publish it, and it's said that Kerouac came up with the title.
Peter Weller is uncanny as Bill Lee (Burroughs) in the film, always dapper and well-dressed even as his mind is crumbling before us. The entire cast is excellent, as you'd expect from such actors as Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Julian Sands, and Roy Scheider.
Cronenberg's always-disturbing special effects are here as well, this time in the form of talking overlord insects that morph from ordinary things, particularly typewriters, symbolizing the love/hate relationship with the written word that plagued Burroughs. The creature effects are simultaneously fascinating, disgusting, and hilarious. They are an integral part of the story, the thread that weaves it all together and makes a plot out of what is often called a "plotless novel".
The DVD is available from the Criterion Collection in a two-disc edition.. I only saw Disc 1 and the movie itself; Disc 2 has several "Making Of" featurettes, photos, and excerpts of Burroughs reading from the novel.
William S. Burroughs' grandfather invented the Burroughs adding machine, and the subsequent Burroughs Corporation merged with Sperry to form Unisys. I'd always heard Burroughs had been disowned and disinherited by his well-connected family: that may be an urban legend, but it's a fitting and romantic one in this case. He's credited with inventing the phrase "heavy metal" and he influenced countless writers and artists from the Beats to Bowie, Lou Reed and Blondie to the Beatles and Nirvana.
His greatest legacy though, may be his reflections and translations of the workings of a drugged mind: the "war on drugs" folks might do better to study the work of self-professed "junky" Burroughs than to keep pouring tax money into enforcing drug laws if they really want to understand the big picture and find a solution.
5.25.05 @ 12:22 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Summer plans: Venice
(well.. not my summer plans, unfortunately)
I've never been to Venice, and although I would love to see it someday, I almost feel as if I have been there now, thanks again to the new world imagery Keyhole has to offer.
So, in keeping with the last few days' posts showcasing some of that imagery, I give you a Venice Keyhole tour. It features the more popular destinations, so be sure to poke around the side canals as well to see what you can find.
By the way, my apologies if you tried to download and view one of these Keyhole tours that didn't work. The error links have been fixed.
Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go. --Truman Capote
A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him. --Arthur Symons
Santa Maria della Salute, on the Grand Canal
Two views of the Piazza San Marco - the second is wet due to Venice's "sinking" problem (which is fortunately becoming more understood and addressed)
The Bridge of Sighs
Rialto Bridge, built around 1590 on approx. 12,000 wooden pilings
5.21.05 @ 2:42 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Fun with Keyhole: interpretations
This time I'm looking at various spots on the earth with Keyhole and deciding they look like something else, or an artist's interpretation of something else anyway. This is the kind of thing you can do literally forever. Download today's Keyhole tour to view or save these placemarks in your Keyhole.
plants sprouting, or a dental x-ray
silver insects on the march
trees blossoming
woven mat
a stylized peacock
decorated Christmas tree
colorful shed snakeskin
Lord of the Rings scenery, maybe a mountain pass
5.20.05 @ 12:09 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Fun with Keyhole: natural wonders and disasters
Today's Keyhole sample tidbits focus on nature's majesty and a couple natural disasters. Some are well-known spots and some are more remote. Colors can vary from place to place on the globe due to variables on the aerial photography side, and time of year of the photo of course, but all the samples I post here are straight from the Keyhole viewer: the Earth is a colorful thing, after all.
One of the true benefits of Keyhole over other aerial mapping services is its (accurate) terrain feature. I've focused on several mountainous areas today: you really can't get a true feel for these shots unless you fire up the application and move around these high places, watching the land rise and fall beneath you. You can also move around within the terrain to get different perspectives than just overhead, as illustrated in some of these. Download today's Keyhole tour to view or save these placemarks in your Keyhole.
forest fire burning in eastern Russia
Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park
Niagara Falls
glacier on the slopes of Mt. McKinley
Bombetoka Bay, Madagascar
looking into the crater of Mt. St. Helens
bison herd in Yellowstone National Park (and observers)
Grand Canyon detail, North Rim
5.19.05 @ 1:18 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Fun with Keyhole: Earth as art
The new global update to Keyhole has brought unlimited new playgrounds to explore vicariously from above, either factually or artistically. Here are 8 abstract artistic reasons to try the program. Download the placemark folder and view with Keyhole to see where these images were captured. More to come!
pastels
paint, beads, and jewels
impressionist flowers
paisley, 60s light show
pastels or poured paint
patchwork crazy quilt
batik or precision tie-dye
stained glass
5.18.05 @ 1:41 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Summer plans: Yellowstone National Park
<yawn> you may be saying.. Yogi Bear and trees, big deal. I admit those were kind of my thoughts when near the area a few years back on a roadtrip quest to Montana, but we thought what the hell? We're close, let's check it out.
WOW! I can't say enough what an impressive place it is. The new Keyhole database shows much of it in glorious detail now, including a herd of bison, so I spent much of the day putting together a tour of the more popular destinations. (Apologies to those of you who frequent both this site and the forum I post a lot of Keyhole stuff on - I realize I duplicate a lot, but hey, time is short when in project mode.)
If you have never been to Yellowstone, I can't recommend it enough. And if you have, you know it's worthy of a return visit. Time to make those summer roadtrip plans!
Where else in the world can you see all this - and much more - on the same day? 
Photos and most of the info in the Keyhole tour from the Yellowstone National Park website
5.16.05 @ 3:45 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Barbie Gone Wild
Barbie has really been getting out there and experimenting with new stuff since she and Ken ended their 43-year relationship in February. Does this mean she's heartbroken and acting out? She is 46 after all - maybe she's just having a mid-life crisis.. 
Ken declined to comment on his ex's recent behavior, but he did say that now he's single again, he'd like to be referred to as an "action figure". He also had "no comment" about this:
5.14.05 @ 2:03 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Stop the insanity
You have to wonder how some folks find their way home at night.
This eejit is still trying to spam Another2cents.com with poker site ads. Every couple of days he or she makes five or six attempts to post about 6" of nonsense words and links to gambling sites. The good news is that the sites will never pay this yoyo the money s/he thinks they're earning by spamming harmless blogs like this one. Apparently the dummyhead hasn't even realized their spams are going unposted - s/he keeps coming back and trying again.
Legit gambling sites forbid their affiliates from spamming to boost affiliate payouts, as do legit affiliate sites of any kind, even porn. (So why doesn't all that porn spam we all get just taper off and go away? Aaahh, that is the ultimate question, grasshopper.)
On the other hand, anyone who clicks such obvious spam links, be they gambling or porn or meds or whatever, and then proceeds to type in their Visa number deserves what they get. I mean really, would you whip out your credit card at a sloppy, shabby store that was obviously being run by unethical crooks? I think not.. I don't know how some folks don't understand this concept when online.
5.13.05 @ 2:23 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Views: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 2005, dir. Garth Jennings
(Original TV mini-series is also available at Amazon.com)
It's good when they get it right. Hitchhiker's Guide has the right cast, the right script, and the right blend of silliness and state of the art effects.
It isn't surprising the screenplay is good: it was written by Douglas Adams, the guy who created the Hitchhiker's empire, even though he died in 2001. He's also credited as co-executive producer. It seems Adams had plans to make the movie since 1982, and it's been in "development hell" until now.
Not a lot has changed since the story debuted on British radio in 1974: it opens with hapless everyman Arthur Dent waking up to discover his house is about to be demolished for a highway bypass, minutes before Earth is about to be demolished for a hyperspace bypass. Arthur is rescued by his friend Ford Prefect, who turns out to be from another planet, and hilarity ensues.
They hitch a ride on a passing spaceship and at the mercy of creepy Vogons ("Resistance is useless"), and soon end up on the fabulous Heart of Gold spaceship, which has been stolen by the two-headed, three-armed president of the galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox, who talks at times very much like Bill Clinton, and his earthling companion Trillian, whom Arthur had met at a party recently, and liked.
Martin Freeman ("The Office") plays Arthur, and Mos Def is every bit as good as Ford Prefect as he was playing Vivien Thomas in Something the Lord Made. Sam Rockwell and Zooey Deschanel are each ideal as Zaphod and Trillian respectively. John Malkovich appears as a religious leader on wheels in a segment that wasn't in any of the prior incarnations - Adams wrote it specifically for the 
movie. Bill Nighy (the aging pop star in Love Actually) is simply wonderful as fjord designer Slartibartfast on the legendary planet of Magrathea, which is every bit as fabulous as all the legends have said it is.
Of course, favorites from Sirius Cybernetics Corporation are also back: Marvin the Paranoid Android is as brilliant and miserable as ever and steals every scene he's in, not surprisingly since his voice is provided by Alan Rickman. The Guide itself is maybe not quite as good as it was in the TV miniseries - maybe it just seemed more high tech and must-have back in the pre-internet era. There is one glaring omission - the Guide's "mostly harmless" entry for Earth - but just about all the other gags and recurring themes are in place. The Vogons are suitably disgusting and creepy, but their poetry hasn't improved over the years.
Unlike other remakes that deny any reference to their predecessors, the new Hitchhiker's adds a really nice touch when we see the original TV Marvin standing in line at a Vogon bureaucracy center. Adams' likeness is also seen for a moment on Magrathea, and the end-credits begin with a simple but moving "To Douglas".
Aside from the various Hitchhiker's and Dirk Gently books, Douglas Adams left us with a fair bit of everyday items and vocabulary: the standard for web-based translation is Babel Fish, and notebook computers, PDAs, and cellphones have evolved into Guides of our own. He also wrote for "Dr. Who" and "Monty Python", appeared with the Stephen King/Dave Barry rock band at times, came up with the title for Pink Floyd's The Division Bell, and later worked for ecological causes. But it's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that depicts his genius best.. it's too bad he didn't live to see this new excellent version, it's the hoopiest.
And, in spite of my recent anti-sequel, anti-remake rant, the good news is that there will be at least one more Hitchhiker's volume for the big screen: the movie ends with our goony quartet of anti-heroes heading off to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.. I wonder who the Dish of the Day will be.
Little-known fact: the Hitchhiker's theme song used for all versions is by the Eagles, surprisingly. It's on 1975's One of These Nights - click the link and listen to the WMP clip and then the Real.
Arthur wonders how to resist some Vogons; and Zaphod, Trillian, Marvin and Ford on the bridge of the Heart of Gold:
Humma Kavula travels down a table; and the Magrathea factory floor:
5.8.05 @ 11:43 PM pdt [add 2 cents]
Behave yourself
Chances are this isn't what your momma taught you.. but maybe it is. Either way, be good to your mom this Mother's Day, and to the other moms in your life too.
Mother's Day e-cards
5.7.05 @ 1:26 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Look at the birdies
I've mentioned and linked to the San Francisco peregrine falcon nest cam before, but look how the chicks are growing! I thought it bore another repeat post, since I don't know if I can trust you guys to check in on them or not.
Now we know where the phrase "stretching one's wings" comes from:
Watch this local news video to see the chicks, or more properly, eyasses, close-up and personal, and hear them, as they get banded by researchers. (Sorry about the commercial in the beginning, sigh.)
Here's a view of their home at PG&E Headquarters, from street level:
Do look in on them from time to time - they're still very clumsy and comical, but it probably won't be long before they grow up and move out. As far as I know, the other cam falcons around the country are also doing well, as is the Massachusetts bald eagle family who now have two chicks! The second hatched on April 18.
5.6.05 @ 12:18 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Views: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason 2004, dir. Beeban Kidron
Pfffttt. I know better than to compare a sequel to an original, or to compare a movie to a book, but this one was still a disappointment.
In Bridget Jones' Diary - both the book and, to a lesser extent, the movie - we liked Bridget and we cared about what happens to her. In this one she's not much more than a bumbling buffoon, with few redeeming qualities that explain her friends' and boyfriends' attraction to her. And all the time she's twitching.
Gone are the more amusing diary entry voiceovers, gone are the endearing qualities that make us overlook her accident-prone nature, and gone is every bit of her charm. Instead we have Renée Zellwiger twitchier and twitchier, acting like she's in a Three Stooges short, making the same idiotic blunders over and over that weren't funny the first time. When she bursts in on her straight-laced lawyer boyfriend's business meetings with sex talk or professions of love for the third or fourth time, well, it wasn't that funny the first time.
Both of Bridget's boyfriends are back again, and one of the few high points in the movie is when they have a rematch of their silly, ineffective, upper-class-twit version of a street fight. Hugh Grant is as charming as ever but slimier than before, and Colin Firth is still stiff and stuffy and dull. There's just not much that's attractive about any of the three personalities this time around.
To give you an idea of how sad this sequel is: Bridget lands in a Thai prison for smuggling cocaine (planted in her luggage, of course) - and she soon has the entire women's prison community singing Madonna songs before she's miraculously sprung from what would have been a 15-year sentence. The DVD also carries an interactive quiz along the lines of "What kind of boyfriend do you want?" Eleven- or twelve-year-old girls might like it.
There are a bunch of other DVD extras but I couldn't even sit through the deleted scenes, let alone whatever else was on there.
I don't really want to bother posting reviews of movies I didn't like, but there is one interesting factoid about this one. The "other woman" whom Bridget finds threatening - beautiful, young, thin, and competent - is played by Jacinda Barrett. Sound familiar? She was part of "The Real World" London cast (the model). A role in a feature film of this scale might give her the prize for the nearest approach to the stardom that most reality tv participants aspire to, but few make it beyond the reunion show.
5.5.05 @ 12:31 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Why sports fans should not own pets
5.3.05 @ 12:07 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
Reads: The DaVinci Code
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
I'm probably one of the last people to read The DaVinci Code but it was interesting to be reading it during the Changing of the Pope. On the off-chance you haven't read it yet and plan to, you're probably safe to continue without too much fear of spoilers, but it's your call.
All in all, it's a good read that works on many levels: art history, the Holy Grail and other religious legends, murder mystery, puzzle-solving, secret society lore, and political goings-on within the Catholic Church to name a few. It's billed as a thriller - I can't say I found it exactly thrilling, so much as a mystery and travelogue through history, art, and theology.
 The Louvre and its pyramid |
Dan Brown packs a tremendous amount of information into the book, most of which is interesting and quite a bit downright fascinating, and the story moves along at a nice pace. But there are quite a few things I didn't like about his style. For instance, most of the chapters have mini-cliffhanger endings: Brown tosses us some bait about something that was seen or discovered or remembered, but inevitably doesn't tell us what it was for a few more pages or chapters, and that gets irritating. We're going to keep reading: we don't need a cliffhanger every five pages to keep us coming back. Also, the fact that most of the 450 pages or so take place within a 24-hour time period is a bit much to swallow, and the fatigue of the characters as they cover the miles between French & British locales is barely referenced - even though that 24 hours begins around midnight, and Langon & Neveu, as well as all the other characters, are operating on full power intellectually throughout with a lot of adrenalin bursts and emotional highs and lows, particularly for Neveu. I don't think there's been this much going on in one literary day since The Brothers Karamazov, and I'm not sure that Brown is up to the challenge set by Dostoevsky.
 Knight tombs in Temple Church |
But nothing defines "contrived" as much as the various wrap-ups for each of the characters toward the end. Everything falls into place just a little too quickly and neatly for me, much like a network TV cop show or movie of the week. At 15 minutes before 11pm we have trauma and chaos for all concerned that, amazingly, is all settled by 10:55 when we turn to the outlandishly ridiculous happy ending and sponsor commercials. The sheer number of happy coincidences and characters who turn out to be not what they seemed are just too much to be remotely plausible, and that was disappointing. I'll accept a lot when reading fiction, but I couldn't accept all this. Then again, I've never been big on happy endings that are tacked on merely for the sake of ending happily.
 Sir Isaac Newton's tomb in Westminster Abbey |
Symbolism is thick throughout, both within the text and surrounding it (Sophie Neveu's name, for example - the nouveau "newbie"), and many of the puzzles are up for solving before our heroes manage it. Langdon is a likeable and consistent character, probably because Brown has worked with him before; but Sophie goes from a bright, take-charge woman with initiative to a wimpy, ineffectual tag-along before we're done, and several of the side characters border on ludicrous accidents of convenient place and time for the plot's sake.
I haven't actually heard as much about the controversies the book is said to have stirred up in religious communities as I've heard about its potential to do so - I think much of that was created by the media because of the book's huge sales figures. After all, it is a work of fiction: religious scholars understand the definition of the word, even if network TV news magazines don't. Not that I don't think much of the controversial stuff in it is possible and even likely - but Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminati books are better for in-depth (if frenetic) looks at conspiracy theories intertwined among politicians, religions, and Masons. The DaVinci Code certainly didn't stir up as many hornet nests as The Last Temptation of Christ did with a similarly controversial theme.. but maybe when the inevitable movie comes out we'll get more of that. Here's hoping.
 Carvings in Rosslyn Chapel |
Thanks to massive sales, author Dan Brown and publisher Doubleday have launched a couple of excellent web-hunt puzzles that relate to the book. They serve as today's double-feature Links o' the Day.
5.2.05 @ 12:01 AM pdt [add 2 cents]
