Larry Craig Reenactment

This is not only funny, but the song is James Bond, 1960s, tawdry great, and it teaches a valuable lesson about cruising.

Why Star Wars Worked

They're showing a pretty silly show on Star Wars technology. It's about whether the technology used in Star Wars could exist today.

It had me thinking about why Star Wars was so successful. It's hard to believe, but it had lots of good ideas. Let's run through them.

Lightsabers. After science fiction movies had blasters and deathrays, it was pretty amazing to have a laser sword. This alone was ultra cool. But there's more.

Darth Vader. Looks cool and evil and billowy.

Death Star. Planet destroyer.

The Force. A pseudo-religion that made kids believe in it too.

The Millenium Falcon. Looked great!

Landspeeders. Floating above the ground. How did they do it?

Robots (or droids). C3PO and R2-D2. Weren't they cute?

All these things were put together in one film that had a quest story, a coming of age story, and a decent bad guy to boot.

None of the sequels (even Empire, which is generally acknowledged as the best of the series) has so many new ideas.

And that's why it worked.

Haas Has Last Laugh

You have to give it to James Blake. He makes all his matches interesting.

James Blake had taken a two sets to one lead, and it seemed that Blake would take the fourth. Except it didn't happen this way. Haas went on win a 6-0 set, and especially at 4-0, it seemed Blake wanted to skip the fourth and run to a fifth set.

And when Blake fell back one break, the strategy seemed in doubt. However, Blake tried to go for his shots more, and it took a while, but he eventually got the break back. More than that, Blake had a chance to break for the match, but Haas stayed in the game, and managed to push it to a tiebreak.

If anything, Blake's aggressiveness lead to errors. Had he not made a few errors, he'd be the one going to the quarters. Instead, Haas took a lead in the tiebreak, then eventually stretched it to a 6-3 lead. Blake then returned a shot on the line, and despite the review, it was point to Blake, 6-4. Still, with two more points to win the match, and one more point on his serve, Haas's chances still looked good.

Then, he served an ace out wide. At that point, Blake might as well review, because the match is over if that doesn't happen. The review held up, and Blake was out.

If anything, Blake's game resembles more Michael Chang than, say, Pete Sampras. Blake is very quick, and relies on a pretty decent backhand to get him out of tight spots. Blake doesn't overpower people, though he can play aggressive returns. He just does a few things a little better than other folks, and that's essentially what happened with Chang.

Blake, for instance, doesn't ace his opponents very much. He doesn't overpower his opponents very much. But he can retrieve really well, and hit decent shots when under pressure. I'd have to imagine most opponents feel they can keep up with Blake, but find it hard to put him away.

This was the kind of match that eventually fell to mental toughness. Haas really did almost choke it away, losing the break, and nearly losing the match. Were Blake a bit mentally tougher, hitting a few shots better, he'd be victor. As it is, the heir apparent to the Becker legacy is off to the next round.

Simple Man

I bought my first simplehuman product. This company, I have to admit, is pretty clever. Its name is interesting. People who get stuff want to be organized, lead a simple life. Thus, simplehuman in its lowercase lettering has an inviting name, that suggests simplicity.

At a price.

The first product it's noted for is a metallic step wastebasket for a whopping hundred--even nearly two hundred dollars. It looks nice. It works well. It's the Dyson of wastebaskets. But is it worth 10 times the cost of a cheap plastic trash can?

simplehuman encouraged a bunch of other companies, from Oxo to Polder to iTouchless, selling expensive trash cans has become the new expensive vacuum cleaners (which had prices upwards of five hundred dollars).

I wanted to get a "nice" dish rack. I got one, and it was moderately cheap, looked nice, but didn't hold dishes up very well. I realized that it's mostly an exception. I brought my Crate and Barrel squarish dish and tried it out on several dish racks at The Container Store and at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I hadn't planned on spending forty bucks on something that normally costs 15 bucks.

What made it easier was that my previous purchase wasn't so good (and I returned it), and so I was willing to spend more to get something nicer. I should have decided on size. My kitchen isn't all that big. This dishrack is huge. And I don't have that many dishes. Having said that, it is nice. And what made it nicer was the prodigious coupons that Bed, Bath, and Beyond sends like every week. It gives 20% off any single product. That's pretty good if you have a big item purchase.

And I put a 40 dollar dishrack in a big item purchase.

In any case, I've succumbed to the allure of this company. It's still plastic and metal made at a bargain. It's not meant to last through a sledgehammer or even a hot car. But for now, it's giving me a modest amount of happiness. Next time, I'd get something smaller.

Gentleman James

There's one facet of James Blake that doesn't get a lot of mention. He's a pretty sporting guy. He gives credit to his opponents. He's very polite. It's almost the kind of thing that gets a person unnoticed.

Recently, after a match with Fabrice Santoro (who's French, despite his likely Italian heritage), he complimented him afterwards on Fabrice's hustle, that he comes to play each time, and he really respected it.

Sports commentators love praising guys who win "the right way". Occasionally, you get people like Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, Venus Williams, and such, who weren't particularly nice, even had a rough edge to them, and people defend them, nevertheless. Why?

Because they win. If they were middle of the pack players, they may get no press attention at all, or they'd be derided for bad behavior. Surprising how winning forgives all that. Michael Wilbon is usually pretty guilty of this. But then, he tends to cling to winners, and they give him access. It's not surprising that sportswriters gravitate to star athletes. Many sportswriters were failed athletes, who, like Salieri, recognize genius, but lack the skills to be genius.

They often do the next best thing, and try to hang out with star athletes, and are willing to defend their excesses because they win. And, it goes without saying that many of the athletes Wilbon has a strong fondness for are African American, and that he sees these athletes as breaking their way into public consciousness, possibly ridding the world, or the US (which is the world to most Americans) of bias against African Americans. Perhaps rid is too strong. But like prideful Italians post famous Italians in their restaurants, prideful African Americans look to their athletes.

James Blake, a bit like Tiger Woods, is of mixed parentage. His father is African American (he passed away a few years ago). His mother, who's white, was an athlete in England, came to the US as a teen. Perhaps that's one reason that he's not perceived so well, despite his slow rise up the rankings. He's not had the kind of press that Andy Roddick has had, nor quite the success.

But James Blake, like Barack Obama, may increasingly become the face of African Americans. In a way, a very odd way, this can be seen as a form of equality. For years, many would find the thought of African Americans marrying white or Asian or anything outside of African Americans unthinkable. Now, it raises far fewer eyebrows, and it's likely to continue (much as Asians intermarrying outside of Asians is likely to increase too).

Hmm, well, this entry, which was going to be about Blake's sportsmanship has turned into a stream of consciousness writing about race, and the evolution of African Americans in the US.

Strange.

Before Famous

Back before Russell Crowe came to the US, and began acting in films like Virtuosity (a Denzel Washington virtual reality thriller), LA Confidential and eventually Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind, Crowe began his career with two films that made a little buzz in the US.

One was Romper Stomper, a film about skinheads. On the flip side was The Sum of Us, a light drama about a father who tries to get along with his gay son. That was on TV this morning. I've seen bits and pieces when it's been on TV, so I know basically what it's about.

When I read about it, I had heard that it was the kind of film you didn't see in the US, and in many respects that's true. For one, although it's often branded as a comedy, it's not. It's more of a slice of life film, and eventually tells the story of the father's own mother, who had a female lover, back in the times when people chose to ignore it, and due to her old age, they separated the women, sending the mother's lover to a home, while the mother joined the family, and eventually died, days later, despondent.

In a way, it's a bit cheap to introduce that bit at the end, even as it provides motivation for why the dad tries to do right by his son.

Even so, it's quite a varied career by Russell Crowe prior to what he did in the US. He underplays the role, playing it rather matter-of-factly. The rest of the cast does more "acting", and he comes out (so to speak) as just himself. The topic is also matter of fact, and really, it's mostly (at the end) about taking care of an infirmed father.

Speaking of natural vs. artificial, I was just watching a Star Trek: TNG episode, where Wesley is about to go to the Academy. In hindsight, the story's pretty weak to do what it wants to do, which is to get Wesley to save the captain's life, and that, mostly, so he can get a few things off his chest that he's been meaning to say, and that because the writers that be want a dramatic ending.

Here's how it goes. Somehow, Wesley and the captain join a mining captain as they head to a colony. At some point, they lose control of the ship and must crash land, in, surprise, a desert. In the meanwhile, the Enterprise has discovered a garbage scow that is bleeding radiation all over. They plan to send it to the sun, but, surprise, there's an asteroid belt in the way.

There are several things going on. First, they need some excuse to prevent the Enterprise from mounting a rescue mission. Thus, radiation from a barge that threatens a planet, and the Enterprise, and add to that, asteroids. Second, they need to crash the shuttlecraft because well, we need danger. And then there's how Wesley saves Picard's life.

Surprisingly, despite how bad the plot is, the story seems to be passable, partly because the actors have been acting a while with one another, and you forgive such horrible convolutions to make it happen.

Worse than that, there is the famous Trek plot device that's simply awful. At one point, Dr. Crusher says the radiation is going to be lethal (in 30 minutes). Not only is this precise, it's a step function. Everyone, all the races on board, are equally affected. 30 minutes and they're all dead. 29 minutes 59 seconds, and they suffer no problems at all. Convenient. And conveniently stupid.

Review: Rocket Science

Jeffery Blitz directed 2002's documentary, Spellbound, about eight kids trying to win the national spelling bee, held in Washington DC every year. Most people haven't given this competition that much thought. It's not like people think of it as particularly nerdy, even though that is what it is. It's kids put to the test of pure memorization.

I say directed, even though it's a documentary. Perhaps directed isn't quite the right word as much as edited. The director still needs to decide which kids to show, how to portray the kids.

It's easy to tell that for any successful spelling bee kid, there's almost always a parent that's deeply involved. The documentary shows that women are as successful as men, that people living in the country can have as much success as those in the city, and that immigrants, particularly those from India, can be better spellers than white Americans that most non-Americans think of as American.

To be a spelling bee champ, you have to devote effort to what, in hindsight, seems like a silly task. Memorizing words. With hundred of thousands, if not millions, of possible words, this task is daunting, and on the surface, downright silly. One could argue that as silly as sports are, there's some remote possibility of making money. There aren't really professional spellers (well, there are Scrabble competitors), so people are competing just because there's a national championship.

Spelling, like many "nerdy" endeavors (I find it far less nerdy than most since it's basically brute force memorization), attracts its share of people, some less socially well adjusted than others.

You have to imagine that Jeffrey Blitz saw, in the many kids he interviewed, an angle he could write about, tell a story about.

Instead of focusing on spelling, the venue is high school debate. More than like, Blitz participated in debate. At the very least, Rocket Science, a film ostensibly about debate shows solid knowledge of this field. This is no Balls of Fury, where the sport is mocked, and likely little real research was done in this "comedy". Blitz shows he understands how debates are run.

But, like the spellers in Spellbound, this film is not just about those who spend their high school years in the pursuit of debate excellence, it asks why. Although the film does not focus most of its attention on Ginny Reyerson, the determined female debater who is also the object of Hal Hefner's awkward affections, nor with Ben Wekselbaum, who Ginny was trying to win a debate championship with, but ultimately does not when Ben reaches an epiphany about life, and decides life spent in the pursuit of debate excellence is wasted, and thus chooses not to continue the debate at the moment of victory.

Instead, it's the story of Hal Hefner, a shy kid with uncontrollable stuttering, whose parents have split up and whose older brother torments him, even as he advises him to have "agendas". He is spotted by Ginny who thinks she can form him into an expert debater.

If this were a more popular film, rather than the indie film it is, you might see Hal overcome his awkwardness, his stuttering, and reach for success. And yet, indie films learn from their more popular brethren how to build up expectations, but rip the cheap thrill we'd get from a satisfying conclusion away. It's the kind of movie that wouldn't play well in India, because it chooses a (somewhat more) honest way to deal with Hal's personal issues.

Films have the unenviable task of making you understand a story and care about the people in less than two hours. Understandably, characterization often takes a backseat to story, and Rocket Science is no exception. Hal is, by far, the most well-developed character.

Everyone else is a bit of a caricature, even if somewhat unique. Ginny, who is the second most developed character, is something of a cipher. You know she wants to succeed as a debater. Winning awards means a lot to her. It's suggested that she's willing to use her knowledge that she's a good looking gal to her advantage, that in society, ambitious women use whatever resource they have.

She's something of a fantasy character for Hal, a teen who's not only beautiful and smart, but also willing to point to the awkward guy, and feel he has something to offer. Anna Kendrick, who plays Ginny, does an excellent job in what would have to be a difficult role. First, she has to master "spreading", the fast speaking that debaters master to fill in as many points as possible in the limited amount of time given in a debate. She has to make fairly technical points, which often leaves most actors dazed, given their lack of technical background.

Blitz pays attention to the smallest of detail to make her attractive to Hal, from the backwards hand-wave, to the small tug of her rather tight jeans. You know Blitz has done this intentionally, because later, in a flashback, he repeats this scene in slomo and closeup.

Also well-cast is Nicholas D'Agosto, who simply looks the part of the debater, Ben Weckselbaum, down to a Tucker Carlson bowtie. He's smug, self-assured, a guy who has mastered the nuances of debate. He was cast in Election, a film this has been compared to.

Oddly enough, this film has been compared to Napoleon Dynamite. Where Hal Hefner is awkwardness personfied, Napoleon seems vaguely unaware that he's a complete dork. He continues plugging on, making up stories about himself and how he's this stud.

Meanwhile, Hal's life, up until he meets Ginny, is missing. His stuttering has meant he hasn't met anyone, hasn't done much with his life. He's smart, but no one, saves Ginny, sees this. And even then, does Ginny really see it? Ultimately, you feel Ginny wants to help Hal because her "breakup" with Ben has left her vulnerable, and she's a woman who wants control. By finding the worst person to debate, she hopes she can mold a nobody into a champion, and show Ben that she doesn't need the best--she can make the best.

Blitz, at least, tries to play honest. There are many tiny details showing a great master of continuity, from Hal always carrying a carry-on suitcase with him, to Hal sitting in the janitor's closet, to Hal leaving school in the middle of the day to find the locket that his brother stole, and bringing that back to Ginny's mother (and she asks "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"). Furthermore, he doesn't create a miracle with Hal, even as he leads you to think he might.

Blitz doesn't develop many of the characters. Hal's parents are ciphers. Hal's mother's boyfriend, a Korean-American judge is there for comic relief. The judge's gay son, Heston, is hardly addressed, nor is Ginny's cross-dressing neighbor, Lewis, whose parents are working their way through odd sex/marriage therapy given much detail. However, these quirky characters are at least not terribly stereotypical.

And, as many indie movies, this movie is a product of the times, recognizing that there are Koreans and Indians in American society, making references to the Kama Sutra by picture, if not by name.

Ultimately, as hopelessly awkward as Hal is, as implausible as his life is, the film is amusing and fairly honest to itself. Hal personifies many a geek who wants to catch the eye of a beautiful girl, who does crazy things hoping to win her over, and who must learn that life isn't always going be as pleasant as you imagine. Often bright people feel there is a kind of destiny for their talent, and figure the answers to life are complex, and require complex actions to achieve.

If his film works, it's partly because Reece Daniel Thompson plays this role so well, and partly because it takes a topic you never see in a film (debate) and asks questions about what people want out of life, what people are prepared to do, and whether, in the end, it's worth taking part of your childhood to push yourself to a kind of success.

It's funny and touching and well worth watching.

Angels and Demons

There are a few things in our society that seem so offensive or disgusting, that we can't imagine, just utterly can't imagine, why anyone would do this. There's stuff like rape, incest, scatalogical turn ons, dogfighting, and so on.

Just underneath this must be cruising in men's bathrooms. Indeed, if you followed any of the discussion (if you can call it that), nearly everyone, to a person, found the thought totally disgusting.

And yet, it doesn't take much thought to think someone must do it. Of course, if you find it disgusting, you can't even begin to rationalize why people do it. You can't tell yourself that there would be some thrill, some excitement, going to some place where you could get caught, and meet with someone totally random, and being a US senator to boot.

Instead, the people who find it disgusting demonize.

The people who cruise must be sick. They must be complete perverts. There's no sane way any rational person would do this. So disgusting! I can't even relate to it!

But people are into S&M. People are into rough sex. Is anonymous sex really much worse? Is it because we associate bathrooms with scatalogical functions that we don't like thinking of sex (or probably, just a quick peek or feel) in these terms?

While we can point out that Larry Craig was a complete hypocrite (which I agree) and due to his actions, closeted individuals must resort to cruising bathrooms, it does hide any intelligent discussion that some people find this exciting. Most news firms are unwilling to treat this as a serious subject, to find out what people might be interested, just as many people never found people who love to watch dogfights when Vick has dealing with the scorn (and, does PETA get the biggest boost out of this, or what?)

Too often, we demonize, because we are unwilling to believe, unwilling to imagine, that somewhere, somehow people might have a reason for doing things that the rest of us find objectionable.

The Slight Tennis Channel

I thought it would be great (not really) that they would have a Tennis Channel, all tennis, all the time. But what I find more fascinating about this channel is not tennis, but squash.

I'm watching an HBO documentary about Billie Jean King. It's this kind of documentary that should show up on The Tennis Channel. Instead the channel is much like Tennis Magazine, which seemed non-offensive. It would tell you how to get to faraway retreats, assuming you had money.

Sports Illustrated would still cover tennis in better depth than Tennis.

While the channel is nice, it's just that--nice. It could be a substantive channel too, and likely, it won't ever be. With other channels claiming the actual matches, and with no desire to stir the pot, it will be pleasant, and no more.

Larry, Quite Contrary

If you listen to the radio, you hear about Senator Larry Craig and his efforts to pick up an undercover cop in the men's room of an airport. Because of this controversy, he's been pressured to step down as senator.

Many gays have been pretty thrilled as one homophobic closeted gay Republican Congressman or senator has had to step down. They find the hypocrisy beyond belief. How can these closeted individuals vote against gay rights? Perhaps out of some deep seated guilt, they vote against what they feel is wrong, but feel utterly helpless, falling to what they see as their personal failings.

It's not really been mentioned, however, why undercover cops still go to men's rooms looking for such solicitations. While cruising in men's rooms may disgust some, is it really worth the effort of cops to try to trap guys so they can be arrested? No one seems to question this or why the men feel compelled to use this as a means of meeting people. Certainly, the danger and anonymity must provide sufficient thrills to overcome all sorts of issues.

As famous a person as George Michael was caught, and this seems nothing new to Larry Craig, who had been accused of making moves on pages as long ago as 20 years ago.

Republicans, too, show a hypocrisy, often knowing the sordid backgrounds, and yet tolerating it because of the expediousness of another Republican vote.

As they say, truth is sometimes far stranger than reality. You could almost not make this up, and yet, here it is.

Squashed

Tennis is so much more popular, as a spectator sport, than pretty much every other racquet sport. Table tennis, racquetball, squash. You can't really see these sports on TV.

Somehow I stumbled on this tennis channel, which lacks any contracts to show the top tournaments, and so they show some casual tennis, and some competitive squash. What you realize is that squash and badminton have far more finesse than tennis. Tennis is really built on power. Badminton has a lot of finesse, which lots of drop shots and lobs, forcing players up and down. Tennis players lack finesse, and you feel, if they'd only watch other sports, they'd be using drop shots a lot and using fitness and speed to try to win.

The problem is the serve. A powerful guy can zip in a fast serve, and finesse is no good if you can't deal with power.

Squash has even more finesse. Racquetball has long gone way too powerful, much like tennis on grass courts, with powerful servers. Squash players force down the line backhand shots over and again, and then drop shots, lobs across the back corner. Rallies run 10, 12, 15 and more shots, requiring speed and finesse.

This sport was once dominated by Pakistanis, but the Brits and even Egyptians are masters of this sport. One obvious missing nationality is the US, since, of course, Americans simply do not care for international sports, where they might suck in any given year.

So inward looking are Americans that a recent Miss Teen USA was asked why 20% of Americans couldn't find the US on a map, and she seemed fixated on South Africa and Iraq in her answer, rather than point out that Americans simply care about the US. We may be more international, but it's too complex for Americans, who, even now, see Iraq as the country "over there", with even American deaths meaningless as long as it's not in the US.

Tennis players could learn lessons by watching squash and badminton. The next revolution appears to be Roger Federer, but I think it will eventually be about people who can drop shot at will, running shots down, playing lobs, and such. But racquets are so heavy, and tennis balls so heavy, that this finesse isn't used much.

Maybe some day.

Monkey Ball

It's not typical, in a second round match, to find a top seed, struggling for his tennis life against the oldest male left in the tournament. But there he was, James Blake, against Fabrice Santoro.

Santoro is French, and has been playing for quite a while. He has pretty odd strokes. He appears to hit a two handed forehand with his right hand over his left (he appears to be a lefty), and then slices a one-handed lefty backhand.

Even though Santoro is French, and Americans are notoriously (and unreasonably) anti-French, they love to see a scrapper. When Alex Corretja pushed Sampras to a fifth set, with Sampras puking all over, people were impressed by how hard Corretja pushed Sampras.

This time, Santoro was the one who was suffering. Despite having cramps and injury timeouts, the crowd didn't turn on him, wishing him well, even as they wanted Blake to win.

And Blake. At times, he was just striking the ball long or wide. And when Santoro clawed his way to a fifth set, that had to get on Blake's mind. Blake had played nine five-setters and had the unenviable record of 0-9. When the score was 4-4, Blake had to be wondering if he could pull this match out, or would he choke against a cramping player and lose?

But Blake kept his head in their long enough, and Santoro, as dogged as his attempt couldn't overcome age and a body that wouldn't stay pain-free long enough for him to claim a nice win.

And Blake, who knew it was a matter of time before he won his first fifth-setter didn't have to wait any longer. The moment was here, and Blake was relieved, ready to play one more round, and live up to a promise of the next great American player.

Caan Job

Scott Caan is not nearly as famous as his dad, James Caan. But he gets a steady diet of jobs. He's been in films like Varsity Blues, Dallas 362, and Ocean's 11, which I've seen several times.

But here's the key. Scott Caan is 5'6". That makes him a pretty short guy. But no other industry can hide height as well as acting. In movies, people don't like to see characters whose heights are drastically different. They don't like pairing a guy, 6'4" with someone 5'7". That difference leads to awkward scenes.

Instead, they try to hide the differences, playing shots at different angles, so height differences are hidden. Actors like Tom Cruise must be pretty happy that, unlike football, height doesn't matter so much.

If you watch Ocean's 11, keep an eye on Scott Caan. He's the guy who hangs out with Casey Affleck. Watch all the things they do to de-emphasize the height differences. Casey Affleck is about 6 ft tall, so he's at least a head taller than Scott Caan.

A bit of movie trickery, as you realize the director tries to manipulate what you see to make you feel and think what the director wants you to see and feel.

Shake and Blake

James Blake should have been the Tiger Woods of men's tennis. But he's not as irascible. He's a bit too good looking. And he's not nearly as supremely talented.

Having said that, I've seen him play a few times recently, and he's got enough speed and power that when he's on his game, he can be tough to beat. But, as good as he is, enough to be a top ten player, he can't even touch Roger Federer, who basically has Blake's number. Blake never seems like he can win against Federer.

And partly because of that, no one much cares about James Blake. Which is too bad, because for a variety of reasons, he should be the kind of guy that promoters ought to love. Yet, because men's tennis is basically the Rafa and Roger show, and even Andy Roddick steals a bit of James's thunder, James Blake has been relegated to the pretty good, but not great player, which, in tennis, in the US, is nothing.

This is how much American care about winners. Heck, Indians, who haven't had a really good singles players in years, follow tennis far more than Americans, who follow football and basketball and sometimes baseball religiously, but no sport that has competitors active from outside North America (the NBA, to its credit, and the MLB, to its, have attracted players from around the world, but the fact is the teams are in the US, and sometimes Canada).

One of these days, maybe more Americans will follow a sport where the best players aren't American.

But don't count on it.

Conditioned Response

There are some words/phrases, when you think about it, that are totally ridiculous. The one I'm thinking of is: air conditioning. Heating, that makes sense. But air conditioning? It sounds like hair conditioning to me!

Why not cooling? Or air chilling? Or chilling? But AC? Or air?

I'm sure there are other, similar phrases that sound totally inane (some people like to point to American football's "yardage" as silly, which it is, if you think about "meterage").

Smile

Image searching is still a tough task. I was trying to find the following image (don't ask why). Asian women (mostly Japanese women) are taught not to smile too broadly. Most women will cover their mouths if they are about to show their teeth because they find something funny. Americans find this odd, and part of the shy nature of Asian women.

Anyway, I still haven't found this photo online because my various search queries do nothing (mostly "shy", "Japanese", "girl", "smile", "cover mouth").

You'd think it would be easier.

Oh stop it!

Bourne Again

It's weird, but I've been in line for movies twice where people talked about The Bourne Ultimatum, the third installment in the Bourne series, about a guy who has amnesia, but is actually a super agent, whose mind has been erased for who-knows-why.

This third installment was directed by Paul Greengrass, who also directed United 93, one of two films that came out last year about the 9/11 tragedy, this one being filmed like a documentary.

It's rare that a third film gets so much praise that people who had basically ignored the series feel compelled to watch it, but word of mouth suggests that is what's happened.

Can anyone think of a film whose third installment might be its best? For most, it's the second (Star Wars), or even the first (The Matrix).

This is also one of many series to appear to have taken the mantle of superspy from James Bond (the other contender would be Mission Impossible, but really?). Is this even a viable genre these days?

Smart Enough to be Dumb

I've longed complained that so-called "dummies" books are often not geared to dummies. You can tell this kind of book within a chapter or so. The author tries to be hip, making some cultural references. "Wardrobe malfunction!". We're supposed to laugh and say "Ha, that humor is helping me to learn already".

While spending an interminable time waiting for my car to get routine maintenance, I was reading a book on Ruby for sys admins. This seems like a peculiar topic for a book, but given that Perl is used for sys admins, why not Ruby?

Oddly enough, the book doesn't start off with a clear explanation of why someone would use Ruby over Perl, nor does it attempt to characterize what typical sys admins do, and why Ruby would be well-suited to the task. Many sys-admins don't think of themselves as deep programmers. They aren't planning to write complex data structures. They typically need to do some common user tasks, and then worry about security.

This book, nevertheless, starts delving into Ruby, with no reassuring words why this would be at all useful.

Often, when "dummies" authors (bad ones I mean) start explaining a language, they mix cute phrases, with technical ones, thus, telling you this is an instance variable, and that is a class variable, and not explaining what either is, or why either is important. This is much like explaining parts of a frog, but not explaining what function it serves.

Many people who teach programming fall in the trap of explaning syntax, because frankly, explaining syntax is easy. Explaining how to program? Not so easy. Explaining how to program is fundamentally explaining how to solve problems, and solving problems is such a general problem, that it's difficult to explain.

Furthermore, bad authors seem to "explain" stuff without making sure the readers are doing something to learn it. This is much like an expert telling you how to play basketball by telling you the rules, the names of the various positions, how scoring is done, but leaving out strategy, and leaving out useful comments about how different people have different skills, and finally, leaving out anything you can do to learn the stuff on your own.

Sometimes I wonder how these books manage to get past an editor, whether they even bother to try the book on real sysadmins (oh, that would be too much work, don't you know?).

Writing books for dummies requires that you understand why some people struggle with the topic you're talking about. This Ruby book (the real title is: Practical Ruby for System Administration by André Ben Hamou) illustrates a common problem for authors: explaing OO programming. Inevitably, they start using terms like methods, objects, messages, inheritance, subclassing, and so forth. Often, in the struggle to make sure they don't say anything technically wrong, they use the terms as if people already knew what they meant, because explaining these concepts would be really hard.

Maybe, in time, such books will improve. In the meanwhile, I'm sure many books will start off with good intentions, but end up helping few dummies, because the authors weren't smart enough to know what a dummy needs.

Words Fail Me

The Prisoner

When I was in high school, I knew this girl, a year older than me, named Janet. Janet's family was over-achieving. Her brother had been one of the top finalists in the Westinghouse science competition (now Intel sponsors it). Their whole family had gone to Princeton (dad, all the kids). For a year or so, she and her family had lived in Massachusetts, then came back to Tennessee.

Our high school, unlike some nearby high schools, lacked a debate class and debate teams. (The following edited for clarity, as per Al's suggestion). When Janet returned, she helped organize a debate club, where she was president. As she was the only one who knew any debate, this made sense. That is also made sense that she probably started the club to pad her college applications wasn't so clear to me then, but makes some sense to me now. At the time, I saw it as an opportunity to learn to debate, learn to speak in public. I was awful at both.

High school debate has been around a long time, and so typically, former debaters teach these courses and field teams for competitions. These are "real" debates. While presidential debates are hardly anything of the sort (they are Q&A sessions, with liberal amounts of spin thrown for ill measure) often relying on emotion rather than reason, these debates favor sounder forms of reasoning.

The format is this. Each year, a topic is picked. Students then research the heck out of them. Books with plenty of facts are made available. Budding lawyers see this as a kind of training for a future career (mock trials fit in this category too). Typically, two people to a team. Two argue for the topic, two against. There's a time limit to present an argument, present a rebut, present a rebut to the rebut, and once more. Then, both sides present closing arguments.

Since the format is timed, debaters sometimes learn to "spread", which is to speak awfully fast, a la Jon Moschita (he used to do the FedEx commercials).

I had forgotten this, since it was so many years ago. I can't say I was even a good debater, because I was pretty nervous speaking, and couldn't produce cogent arguments on the fly. Even so, I thought it would help me with speaking (it didn't).

Rocket Science is a film that's loosely about debate, though it feels more like a Wes Anderson film. While comparisons have been drawn to Election about an ambitious girl who needs to be class president, and the civics teacher who opposes everything this girl stands for, Rocket Science is not that malicious.

Indeed, it's a kind of fantasy, about a painfully shy guy, who stutters, whose mom kicks out his dad, then begins dating a Korean American judge (the Asians are a bit too caricatured for my tastes, but it does show the diversity of our society). Ginny is the object of his affection, a debater whose successful partner suddenly freezes one day (diversity rears its head, as the opposing debate team's male representative is Indian American) during the debate championships, and she seeks, in this repressed kid, a new partner, perhaps serving as Professor Higgins to Hal (the pressed kid) as Eliza.

Much like Wes Anderson, music plays a big role in this film, as do Hal's awkward moments (exaggerated to effect).

And I'd have a full review had the bulb not been dying, and the theater manager come in to say he'd have to replace this hot, hot bulb, requiring at least 45 minutes to cool before it could be replaced.

And why was I watching this movie?

I had wanted to see it, of course, but I hadn't expected to see it then. I was being held prisoner by the car dealership. Not exactly literally, but close enough. I was in for routine servicing, which means they were not only going to charge an arm and a leg, but also ask if you wouldn't mind giving up vital organs while you were at it. I'm sure, somewhere by my name, is the word "Sucker", as in, offer any expensive service, because this guy will take it.

And I end up taking it because I think that any time I spend in preventive care is better than dealing with it unexpectedly in the shop.

But everyone knows the dealer charges at least 50% more than a regular mechanic, if not more. Odd that they have five people up front, who seem perpetually busy, but doing what? They don't repair a thing. They are there to essentially convince you to get more servicing. And man, do they always seem busy for a job that shouldn't require that much inattention to customers.

They have little incentive to do what's in your best interest, but at least they aren't so egregiously awful as to recommend everything under the sun.

And yet, because I don't really want to find another mechanic to do fixing, I let them do the work.

And even though I came in at 7:30 and figured I could be out by maybe 9, I had to stay til noon. Amazingly ridiculous. The only saving grace is that it's right in downtown Bethesda, and there are other things to do in the meantime.

Including watching Rocket Science.

Right now, I'd have to say car dealerships are down there with, I dunno, torturers? as the least desirable people on the face of the Earth. I would love if the government would send in people to get car repairs and for every useless repair, the mechanic would get fined. Indeed, I think people should go through someone that does diagnosis (much like a doctor) and someone else that does the repair.

It's honestly too bad that places like Honda and such who could do a lot to make the experience nice and honest, simply does what everyone else does, which is to take their money due to their ignorance.