March 2002 Archives

I went with Viridiana and her sister Gretel to watch Monsoon Wedding. From Eberts review:

The hope for "Monsoon Wedding" is that those who like it will drag their friends into the theater. There's such an unreasonable prejudice in this country against any film that is not exactly like every other film. People cheerfully attend assembly-line junk but are wary of movies that might give them new experiences or take them new places. "Monsoon Wedding," which won the Golden Lion as the best film at Venice 2001, is the kind of film where you meet characters you have never been within 10,000 miles of, and feel like you know them at once.

I liked it; it was great. Don't read the review now, just go and watch the movie. No run. You will be smiling.

Not that we need it, but there's more evidence that Microsoft are bullying their customers because they can.

Microsoft Killed Dell Linux

"I'm thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. ... they should do a delicate dance," Kempin wrote to Ballmer, in what is sure to be a memorable addition to the phrases ("knife the baby", "cut off the air supply") with which Microsoft enriched the English language in the first trial. Unlike those two, this is not coned. "

Yay, I got contact lenses today. All too cool. I am only supposed to wear them [not all day] though for the first few days. I really ought to get some new glasses too, because the old ones are not quite strong enough (or maybe just too scratched?). The most annoying thing is looking for tiny street numbers while driving. Impossibly! :-)

Another neat feature is that now I can see to the sides without having to turn my head; how cool is that. Oh well, if you are not wearing small glasses then you have no idea.

This dame's been bugged

Some years ago, when in Canada, I wrote to complain (Letter, March 16) of finding a bed-bug in my berth on an overnight train. Quick as a flash came a fulsome apology: horror, never happened before, full investigation, etc. The effect was somewhat spoilt by careless enclosure of my original letter bearing a scribbled note: "Send this dame our bug letter".

"It's a pretty fucking sad story, really, but not in the hands of Bruckheimer and Scott. In their hands, it's a relentless porno about guns and bombs.".

I would have used different words, but he is right on the money,

"Somewhere between good intentions and the screening room, however, $90 million got in the way. And when those grassfuckers in Hollywood put that much dough into something, you can bet your ass they aren't going to challenge the audience."

"It looks great, real, bloody, violent and chaotic. In fact, Blackhawk Down does an amazing job of showing that war is all chaos and new decisions that must be made every minute. It's never cartoonish. In fact, Scott loves to make it as gritty and bloody as possible. He makes sure we understand that the American fighters are in a lot of pain; screaming, squirting blood and slowly passing away. By contrast, the Somalians drop like flies. Every single one of them dies an instant and painless death."

Andersen staff thought shredding met policy
Andersen's policy? I am sure the IRS will be happy to send them a little folder where it explains what you are required to keep and for how long.

Enron IT: A Tale of Excess and Chaos - CIO Executive Research Center
"Enron's fragmented business units spent money on technology like there was no tomorrow. And now there isn't.". Really! Actually, it's an interesting tale about why it isn't such a bad thing to fill out a form from the Department of Records and then wait for the Ministry of Information to get a new computer. (Guess a movie)

Final Arguments Underway in Dog Mauling Trial

Dogs are nice and all, but jeez. Get a clue. Some weeks ago LA Times had a moving account of the neighbor listining to Whipple being bitten up outside the door. Yuck. :-(

He said the entire tragedy began when Knoller and Noel became involved with two Pelican Bay State Prison inmates who had a plan to raise guard dogs for the benefit of the Aryan Brotherhood, a violent prison gang.

Knowing all of that, he said, Knoller and Noel agreed to raise the dogs.

U.S. official: Missile 'still not realistic'

(they call it "success-oriented ing"). What a waste of money.

It looks like mozilla doesn't textwrap with the default styles.css file.

I tried adding "white-space:normal;", but it didn't have any effect. (no clue if it should have).

update: Ben says that mozilla is broken; when the width is set for the textarea it won't remember any wrap options. Bah!

Libertarianism Makes You Stupid. People who venture into electronic discussion areas will invariable encounter an ideology called Libertarianism; this is a funny guide to deal with it.